Dispatches from the 10th Crusade

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Divine sovereignty for the rest of us

For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.

The Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians

If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Barack Obama

It's a cliche that Communism is an alternative religion, or at least that it plays the role in the minds of its adherents that a religion plays. But it's also true. And great writers like Whittaker Chambers have made that truth far more than a cliche.

Barack Obama here translates into secular terms, and thereby warps and perverts, what Christians believe about God. All that we have is a gift. God has given us our talents, our abilities, our opportunities. And especially in salvation, the work is of God. None of us has anything to boast of.

Obama replaces God with the government. What we have is all a gift...of the government. Therefore, presumably, just as Christians owe everything back to God ("All things come of thee, oh Lord, and of thine own have we given then"), presumably entrepreneurs owe everything to the government. They have done nothing of themselves. It is the gift of State. Not of works, lest any man should boast.

A little later, Obama weakens a bit in the direction of synergism:

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

Because we are not fools, we know that "do things together" is easily deciphered code for "the government does things." Obama makes this clear in the next sentence by comparing all businesses to firefighting and urging the necessity for firefighting to be done by a government agency.

So here, Obama is sounding a bit like St. Paul in another place,

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Phil. 2:12-13)

But Obama's synergism doesn't amount to much. Ultimately, like a devout Christian (perhaps especially a Calvinist), Obama believes what he said the first time: If you've got a business, you didn't build that. State made that happen. It's all of grace, and therefore all is owed back.

Should this Socialist religionist creep us out? Yes, he should. (And if anyone gives me a hard time about using the "S" word, I shall be much inclined to rend him limb from limb. There comes a time when you just have to say it, as Balint Vazsonyi told us ten years ago.) As Lawrence Auster points out, here Obama is canceling all individual achievement and making all achievement collective in nature. And I'm quite sure Obama really believes it.

This is the true face of the left. Get used to it, because you'll be looking at it for a long time. But also: Fight it to the end.

This was a great post as I hadn't thought of the false religion angle...I was too wrapped up reading this stupid speech this morning and thinking about how bad this argument is from a rhetorical and rational perspective. As Jim Geraghty said in his daily email newsletter called "Morning Jolt":

Take that, Straw Man!

So, which Republicans are calling for an end to streets and roads, or communal firefighting?

It's a rehash of a diatribe from Elizabeth Warren -- you know, the middle-class warrior whose campaign keeps running up thousands of dollars in bills at the luxurious "W" hotels. Her version:

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

You built a factory out there -- good for you! But I want to be clear.

You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for.

You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.

You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.

You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea -- God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.

But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Daniel Indiviglio summarized at the time, "The rhetoric here implies that entrepreneurs don't want to pay taxes for roads, public schools, and police officers. Of course, this view would be held only by the most extreme of anarchist-leaning libertarians. But let's put that criticism aside for now. Let's also ignore the fact that state taxes -- not the federal taxes that Warren would have power over as a senator -- generally pay for all of these expenses. Even forgiving these seemingly relevant points, it's hard to see how her argument makes any sense. In fact, wealthy entrepreneurs as a group do pay more taxes than other Americans -- a lot more. They pay higher rates, as I explained yesterday. And we can take that a step further: they pay many more actual dollars in taxes per capita. And yet everyone has equal access to those common good products, like roads, education, and security. This implies that the wealthy pays far more than their fair share."
In this, however, we see the distilled essence of the Obama reelection message.
He can't run on his record. The "wrong track" numbers are still terribly high. His accomplishments like the stimulus and Obamacare are so unpopular that swing-state Democrats almost never mention them. So Obama is going to run on populist rage, and tell Americans that the only thing standing between them and their oft-delayed dreams of prosperity and security are rich guys like Mitt Romney.
Have no illusions, this strategy could work. There are a lot of Americans who have not achieved their dreams.
Some of them have not achieved their dreams because of insufficient opportunity or bad luck. But I would bet an even larger percentage of those who are disappointed with their lives have reached that point at least partially because of their own actions: not working hard in their education or their jobs, hesitation about pursuing opportunities, succumbing to drug or alcohol abuse, quitting endeavors in the face of adversity, cutting corners or run-ins with the law, drifting into aimless slacker-dom, and so on. To put it in Obama's terms, there are a lot of people who failed who weren't smart or hard working.
Most self-help authors begin with a very hard message to the reader: Whatever condition your life is in, it is up to you to change it. You cannot wait for some outside factor to make your life better. The only person who can seriously improve the quality of your life is you. Others can help, but if you're not willing to expect more and better from yourself in everything that you do, their efforts will almost certainly fail. In the end, whether you succeed or fail in what you want out of life is up to you.
To a lot of people, this is a terrifying message. It means they can't blame their parents, their siblings, their teachers, their peers, their bosses, society, the government, God, vast conspiracies, Fate, random chance, or anyone else for the fact that their lives are not what they want them to be. It means admitting that they've let themselves down, and some people will do and believe anything rather than confront truths as hard as that.
The failure of those who prefer to seek scapegoats instead of looking honestly at themselves is not something any federal program can solve.
But . . . the message that "it's somebody else's fault" is a very seductive one, and one that is pervasive in society.
Why, you might even see the most powerful man in America insisting that his policies haven't worked because of ATMs, corporate-jet owners, the Tea Party, Republicans, Japan's earthquake, the Arab Spring, George Bush, "Fat-Cat" Wall Street . . .

Also, some people haven't achieved their dreams because they were taught to dream totally unrealistically to begin with. Many years ago I read in Focus on the Family magazine (of all things) about a little boy in a wheelchair. He was a wonderful little kid, and there was no way he was ever going to be able to walk. I believe he was about eight at the time of the story.

He hoped to be a fireman one day. A fireman. And they reported this like, "Aw, ain't that sweet. Look at his big dreams."

I don't care how cruel it sounds, it's a lot crueler to let this kid keep growing up and not tell him that he isn't going to be able to be a fireman.

Our "you can be anything you want to be" message to people is a cruel one. Most of us can't be just anything and everything we want to be, for many reasons.

Now, this is entirely consistent with a message of personal responsibility, because it is perfectly consistent with saying that accomplishing good, worthy, and realistic goals suited both to the economic situation and to one's own abilities requires personal responsibility and hard work, and that if you fail at those it may well be that you weren't dedicated enough.

Also, of course, some people haven't achieved their dreams because the economy stinks, and Obama is the *last* person to help with that problem. It's scary eyewash for the masses to teach them Occupy slogans and get them to vote for Obamessiah to help them soak the rich.

Anyway, I did enjoy writing up the false religion angle, because I definitely think it's there.

The Presidential message, though extreme, is a corrective to the hyper-individualism of the Right.
The entrepreneurs are generally said to be both visionary and motivated by gain. But this is a contradiction.

The entrepreneur is moved by a vision of further perfection of his country and moves to realize this vision. He is a perfective agent
and is naturally oriented to the City and not merely to the individuals.
Basically, he is a Patriot and not a lover of gain.

The Conservatives need to ask themselves: do they have the spirit of solidarity with the poor and the unemployed and less-skilled and less-fortunate
or they have the spirit of Mises, the Lenin of Austrians:
"Social cooperation has nothing to do with personal love or with a general commandment to love one another… [People] cooperate because this best serves their own interests. Neither love nor charity nor any other sympathetic sentiment but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society…and to substitute peaceful collaboration to enmity and conflict". (Human Action, p. 168-9)

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Only yesterday, I learned that the Congress while cutting funding for food stamps, has increased subsidy in Food Bill. So that's where the Republicans stand for.
The Republican paeans to the Self-made man could very well deliver the country to the waiting arms of socialists.

Gian, baloney. One doesn't come along and say something pernicious and totally false, something that makes government godlike in its power and importance and that negates the reality of individual achievement, and then just get a free pass because one's "extreme" statement is a "corrective." But I have no doubt, no doubt at all, that the President counted on there being people out there who would think and talk just as you do. This is Communist, collectivist rhetoric pure and simple, and nobody should pussy-foot around it.

Oh, and newsflash: Some of us do not believe that "solidarity with the poor" is best expressed by government food stamp programs.

At the risk of being controversial (when did that ever stop me?) I think that what America needs now is more individualism, individualism of the right sort, not less. We need government to get out of the way and let ingenuity and entrepreneurship create jobs and opportunities, which will in fact do the most good for the poor. Obama's entire approach is poisonous and destructive. It will result in more poverty and more dependence on an increasingly insolvent, not to mention intrusive and totalitarian, government. Is this compassion? Far, far from it.

To preach against American individualism right now and to excuse Obama's remarks on the grounds that Americans are "too individualistic" is utterly wrong-headed. It is like telling a dying drug addict that his problem is that he's too self-controlled, that he needs to "let go and live a little" and "follow his heart."

Lydia McGrew: "Obama is canceling all individual achievement and making all achievement collective in nature. And I'm quite sure Obama really believes it.

This is the true face of the left. Get used to it, because you'll be looking at it for a long time. But also: Fight it to the end."

I appreciate the thoughtful mincing of words. Quite helpful.

Question: What exactly are the differences between the Left and today's Modern American Liberals?

As far as I can ascertain, since Modern American Liberals vote for and advance Leftist causes, whether done in ignorance or not, whether done as knee-jerk reaction to so-called conservative arguments, whether done as brain-washed tools of the meanstream media, they are aiders-and-abetters and enablers of Leftism. As such they are morally culpable and complicit.

And so when or if a modern American liberal says that they are liberals, and not a leftist, I'm somewhat non-plussed and dubious. And skeptical.

Nah, I usually use the phrases "the left" and "American liberals" as more or less synonymous. However, there are also various people who want to come in and blah-blah about "right liberals," and I have a feeling, which may be illusion, that using "the left" discourages them.

Gian, baloney. One doesn't come along and say something pernicious and totally false, something that makes government godlike in its power and importance and that negates the reality of individual achievement, and then just get a free pass because one's "extreme" statement is a "corrective."

Lydia, baloney. Obama didn't say anything totally false unless you pull a sentence or two out of context. He overemphasized something that's underemphasized on the other side, and he was being disingenuous as usual, but the essence of this particular message was not incorrect. Obama created a caricature and dismantled it, just like you're doing now.

I don't endorse their specific models, but it's worth noting that "socialist" countries like Canada and Denmark have higher rates of small business ownership than the United States. Government can help entrepreneurs or hurt them, and in the United States government hurts them too much - but entrepreneurs need government.

Oh, and newsflash: Some of us do not believe that "solidarity with the poor" is best expressed by government food stamp programs.

Newsflash, Lydia: "solidarity with the poor" starts with noticing the poor, which conservatives of your stripe seldom do apart from slamming slackers, illegals, and welfare queens.

I hate to break it you, but Obama is correct. Society and the laws it creates facilitates the creation of businesses by enforcing contracts, creating infrastructure, and providing education to potential workers and entrepreneurs. It seems highly unlikely that anarchy could create the kind of economic success that modern states have. That doesn't mean that entrepreneurs don't work hard, it just means that their work would be useless without social cooperation. You can call this a religious view if you want, the fact of the matter is that this is actually how the world works. I find "religions" based on observable reality to be far less scary than extreme versions of Christianity.

At the risk of being controversial (when did that ever stop me?) I think that what America needs now is more individualism ...

Like we need a hole in the head. An overdose of individualism is what got us here in the first place.

We need government to get out of the way and let ingenuity and entrepreneurship create jobs and opportunities, which will in fact do the most good for the poor.

If you really think "getting government out of the way" is enough to solve our economic problems at this stage, you're frankly delusional. More bread and circus entrepreneurs aren't going to help. I don't care how libertarian the state becomes - until Americans reject radical individualism and start recognizing the common good; start marrying again and having children (demographics being the most salient cause of this recession); start caring more about their families and communities than profit, pleasure, and comfort; until we stop killing babies and wallowing in filth; in short, until this country is turned around culturally, neither more government nor less government is going to make any difference. Carts, horses, and all the rest.

It seems highly unlikely that anarchy could create the kind of economic success that modern states have.

\

I'll remember that next time I endorse anarchy. Which I'm doing all the time. Oh, guess not.

As a commentator on a different site put it, the absence of anarchy is provided to _all_. Yet not all people create new businesses, not all people produce wealth. Obama's statement does eradicate the value of individual hard work, creativity, and merit. It is false. Pointing to the need for infrastructure is just a fig leaf to cover his blatant collectivism.

If you really think "getting government out of the way" is enough to solve our economic problems at this stage, you're frankly delusional

It's a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition. Then again, since our economic problems, in my opinion, are largely the result of government, which can if it tries effectively kill a country, it may be that nothing can fix them. Which is not the fault of individuals and free markets. Or free marketers.

Obama didn't say anything totally false unless you pull a sentence or two out of context.

"I've been taken out of context" is these days the refuge of demagogues. Which Obama certainly is. Context? The entirety of Obama's policies, his associates, and his other statements provide quite sufficient context to see that he meant every word. He is indeed a collectivist. He truly demeans and misprizes individual effort and human freedom. He truly believes that government run by ideologues like himself can solve, and must solve, our problems, that we owe what we are and have to government, that government can do better than free individuals at pretty much everything, and much more in the same vein. This just happened to be a particularly blatant expression of his essentially collectivist and communistic mindset.

"solidarity with the poor" starts with noticing the poor, which conservatives of your stripe seldom do

Hmmm, we were speaking of caricatures?

I don't, in fact, think that food stamp programs and other government programs, still less federal government programs, are a wise way to serve the poor, and I think that the economic policies advocated by Obama and his ilk are *terrible* for the poor. The rich may be able to ride out economic tsunamis created by socialism, tax and spend, borrow and spend, inflation, etc. People without a margin can't.

Jeff, I think it's significant that the above quoted remark was your response to a statement that I made about foodstamp programs and whether they are a good expression of "solidarity with the poor." That that _was_ your response bespeaks something Thomas Sowell talks eloquently about: Namely, the idea that if one doesn't endorse x program, one doesn't care, and that showing that one cares is more important than advocating actually wise policies. In fact, according to the Vision of the Anointed, caring is the one all-important thing, and agreeing with the Anointed about policies and programs is the only acceptable way of showing that one cares. A swift (not to say kneejerk) reaction of "You and your kind don't really care about the poor" to a criticism of a federal government program is, I'm sorry to say, the perfect example of the phenomenon Sowell rightly decries.

Obama's statement does eradicate the value of individual hard work, creativity, and merit.

Hard work matters, and I conceded that point when I made my other post. The point that I think Obama was trying to make, and the point I know other liberals have made, is that all of that hard work would be useless if it wasn't for society. Newton was a brilliant scientist, but If Newton had been born in the stone age then it would have been impossible for him to make the advancements that he did. Does that mean that Newton didn't work hard? No, it means that he benefited from living in a society capable of passing on knowledge. People who start businesses often work very hard, but the societal structures that make modern commerce possible play a large role in their success.

until we stop killing babies and wallowing in filth; in short, until this country is turned around culturally, neither more government nor less government is going to make any difference.

Jeff, you know well my commitments on the pro-life front and on matters such as filth and pornography. They are in no way in question. Individualism of the right kind, which I specified, will *of course* not involve killing babies and wallowing in filth.

What I do know is that the policies of the left on both social and economic issues are *disastrous* for our country, morally and materially both. Denigrating the value of entrepreneurship and making us all into yet-more-dependent zombies, as Obama is trying to do, isn't going to save the life of a single baby, born or unborn. Binding more people to the Democrat party through loyalty purchased by handouts and dependence, however, will result in more lost lives and more persecution of pro-lifers, Christians, and conservatives. The party of death and filth, the party that persecutes pro-lifers, is also the party that hates individual merit, effort, businessmen, and productive citizens. Make of that what you will, but it is simply a political fact.

People who start businesses often work very hard, but the societal structures that make modern commerce possible play a large role in their success.

Sort of, sort of not. Lots of structures that make modern commerce possible were also created by individual inventors and pioneers. A large role? In the same sense that they also play a "large role" in the lives of people like me who don't start any businesses and in the lives of criminals who tear down society. The roads can be used both by entrepreneurs and by gangstas. Each person, to a large extent, decides how to use what is available to him. Your platitudes are helping nothing. They are still overstated anyway, and platitudes aren't what Obama meant anyway. As always with postmodernists, the first statement is outrageous, radical, and exciting and then is followed up with a vapid platitude as "what I/he really meant." This game is as old as the hills, and I find it boring. Obama said what he meant. Let him who has ears to hear, hear.

Like the similar polemic propounded by MA Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, Obama's "you didn't build that" argument is curious in that it depends upon the presupposition that there are right-wingers of prominence recommending that localities dismantle their police and fire departments and deliberately allow their roads to deteriorate. It reaches for the most universally accepted responsibilities of government and smuggles in the premise that America is actually awash in politicians and agitators who reject that acceptance. Moreover, it quietly takes no notice of federalism at all. The whole point of federalism is that the bulk of those things "we do together" well, are best undertaken by officials not far removed from the communities affected, rather than bureaucrats so distant as to reduce to an abstraction of officialdom.

Warren actually raised the specter of removed police protection: nice factory you got there; it would be a shame if something happened to it and the police didn't come. Great argument if your interlocutors are agitating for abolishing police departments. But since no one is engaged in said agitation, the argument looks more like a mafia-style protection racket.

In a word, a fair characterization of the conservative critique of government would provide no foundation for the polemic advanced here.

Jeff, I think it's significant that the above quoted remark was your response to a statement that I made about foodstamp programs and whether they are a good expression of "solidarity with the poor." That that _was_ your response bespeaks something Thomas Sowell talks eloquently about: Namely, the idea that if one doesn't endorse x program, one doesn't care, and that showing that one cares is more important than advocating actually wise policies. In fact, according to the Vision of the Anointed, caring is the one all-important thing, and agreeing with the Anointed about policies and programs is the only acceptable way of showing that one cares. A swift (not to say kneejerk) reaction of "You and your kind don't really care about the poor" to a criticism of a federal government program is, I'm sorry to say, the perfect example of the phenomenon Sowell rightly decries.

While I appreciate the lesson in how to construct a clever non sequitur, I'm not sure it furthers the conversation you wanted. Or did you want a conversation at all? Nevermind, I know the answer to that.

My comment stands on its own: conservatives of your particular brand - this is no caricature - have nothing to say to the poor, politically, other than blame and censure. I suppose you can tell them that if only your laissez faire economic policies were implemented they would all become modern day Horatio Algers. If only the state would get out of their way. No wonder the Left has a monopoly on their attention.

Sort of, sort of not. Lots of structures that make modern commerce possible were also created by individual inventors and pioneers.

In a sense you are right. I am saying that those structures exist because of social cooperation. It only takes one person to realize building public roads is a good idea, but it takes a lot of people to support public infrastructure projects.

A large role? In the same sense that they also play a "large role" in the lives of people like me who don't start any businesses and in the lives of criminals who tear down society. The roads can be used both by entrepreneurs and by gangstas. Each person, to a large extent, decides how to use what is available to him.

That is consistent with the argument that I made. The fact that some people fail to take advantage of the opportunities provided to them does not mean that those opportunities aren't provided by society.

Your platitudes are helping nothing. They are still overstated anyway, and platitudes aren't what Obama meant anyway. As always with postmodernists, the first statement is outrageous, radical, and exciting and then is followed up with a vapid platitude as "what I/he really meant."

Sort of like how you believe in "individualism of the right kind", by which you mean "individualism" that is constrained by a state built on your personal values. Most conservative rhetoric about liberty is completely nonsensical.

Jeff Culbreath: "My comment stands on its own: conservatives of your particular brand [Lydia's brand] - this is no caricature - have nothing to say to the poor, politically, other than blame and censure."

Sort of like how you believe in "individualism of the right kind", by which you mean "individualism" that is constrained by a state built on your personal values. Most conservative rhetoric about liberty is completely nonsensical.

Well, Orly, I had, and have, no intention of launching into a point-by-point defense of my position on issues like abortion and pornography. In this post, as in many of my posts, I'm chiefly speaking to fellow conservatives, including those who (as you see in this thread) are less sympathetic than I am to the free market. I do not engage in empty rhetoric about liberty, and everything that I say about individual economic freedom and the evils of Obama and socialism is supposed to be understood by my audience as coming from a strong and unabashed social conservative. Indeed, advocacy for strengthening marriage is one of those "things free market conservatives of my type" have to "say to the poor" that my colleague Jeff Culbreath says we don't have to say.

By the way, Jeff, I certainly hope that having "something to say politically" isn't supposed to be equivalent to "proposing direct government assistance or a government program." If so, of course, then saying that nothing counts as "having something to say" unless it is such a proposal would verge on being question-begging against a less-government approach to problems of poverty.

Having something to say politically to the poor means having something to say politically to the poor. Policy wonks talking to policy wonks is not what I had in mind. (A reminder: you started this thread with the remarks of presidential candidate on the campaign trail.)

You are the one who said that conservatives of "my type" have nothing to say to the poor, which is rather breathtaking when one considers all the work that has indeed been done by free-market think-tanks on these very issues.

Are you asking me to write a treatise? I think these guys have a lot of different good ideas. Why should I reinvent the wheel? Ultimately nothing is a cure-all, and, yes, whether you happen to like it or not, a lot is going to come down to behavior change. After all, we can stop subsidizing illegitimacy and in-school pornography (aka sex education), but if people still choose to be promiscuous, it's pretty hard to stop them. I don't propose that we throw all promiscuous men and women into prison for that per se. You and I might actually agree, however, on measures that some would consider draconian for "breaking the cycle of poverty" by putting the infants of promiscuous unmarried women up for adoption by couples who would not raise them, in turn, to be promiscuous and to live on welfare.

Some of my ideas have to do with keeping law and order and letting the chips fall where they may as far as "disparate impact." It is damaging to the poor especially to have lawless streets, destruction of property, and gang violence, unchecked. What is the point of giving tax credits for Renaissance zones if the Renaissance zones are not kept safe? So one way I would help the poor who genuinely just want to live their lives and get out of poverty would be by getting criminals off the streets--long-term. If the poor want this kind of help, as I'm sure some of them do, they can start by cooperating with police investing crime or even just vandalism. They can get rid of "no-snitch" talk. Etc. Solid law and order will help to insure the security of business and contracts and will encourage business and development.

I also continue to maintain, which you evidently believe is irrelevant, but which I have stated "in my own words" time and time again, that a healthy economy generally is good for everyone, but for the poor most of all. Therefore questions about "helping the poor," especially the poor who truly wish to be industrious and make a living, to a rather striking degree end up being questions about having a healthy economy generally. I have said so many of "my own words" on that subject on many threads on this site that it would be difficult to collect them all. My opinions on that subject are not popular with anyone here, partly because they include views about the dangers of fiat money and the national debt (and the connection between those two) that are considered kooky.

Various attempted "solutions" to problems of poverty, solutions which assume a relatively stable social and economic backdrop, may indeed become moot if our entire economy falls off a cliff because of past irresponsibility, cannot be saved, and the country falls into a state of anarchy. I have no optimistic statements to the effect that that can be prevented if only the "right person" is made economic Czar. What if it's too late? But I can tell you for sure that the ideas President Obama and his advisers have in mind along these lines are going to make matters worse rather than better.

What kind of a thing is that to say? Jeff, policy wonks propose policy. They hope that politicians will put that policy into effect. I'm sure the "policy wonks" do indeed try to make concrete proposals both to politicians and to private people who want to help charitably.

Let me ask this question, will the poor of this nation ultimately be helped or hurt by the recent HHS diktat (possibly illegal) that drastically undermines the 1996 welfare reform praised by patriotic men of both parties for many years? This on the heels of the other blows to the reform (again, not by proper legislation but straight-up administrative decree) in the 2009 stimulus would present a pretty sharp point of practical politics as to whether a given policy benefits the poor.

"My comment stands on its own: conservatives of your particular brand - this is no caricature - have nothing to say to the poor, politically, other than blame and censure. I suppose you can tell them that if only your laissez faire economic policies were implemented they would all become modern day Horatio Algers. If only the state would get out of their way. No wonder the Left has a monopoly on their attention."

Lydia has already made one comment on the peculiar notion that conservatives would have something politically appealing to say to the poor -- the poor, thinking politically, have always been open to base appeals to their material needs. Bread and circuses. Whose going to object if I promise you X, Y and Z paid for by A, B, and C. If anything, perhaps this is the time for your anti-democratic streak to find common cause with us market-friendly conservatives -- time to bring back property requirements when it comes to voting?

The message conservatives have for the poor is closely related to the old-fashioned message of Horatio Alger, today with the added age-old wisdom of "don't have sex and kids until you are married." Although it is of course silly to promise that everyone will become rich following this advice, I can almost guarantee you won't remain poor. Of course, it is also silly to characterize anyone who doesn't buy into Obama's agenda as someone who doesn't appreciate the social obligations he owes to his neighbors and countrymen as a fellow citizen -- many of which he doesn't have to fulfill through a government program:

In an attempt to cut down on the expense of college, I navigated the curriculum efficiently and managed to graduate in three and a half years. As a result, about 20 years ago I went home to live with my parents for nine months before starting a graduate program in public administration. Starting over with a new program meant that I needed to save up some money for an apartment deposit and other expenses. For reasons I can’t recall, I visited a neighborhood drug store called the Brunton Drug Company. The proprietor, Bob Brunton, hired me to make deliveries and work the cash register as needed.

I almost quit the job before it began. Bob showed me the truck I would use to make deliveries. It was a Mitsubishi Mighty Max with a stick shift. I did not know how to drive a stick shift. I went home, downcast, planning to find a non-humiliating time to leave a note under the door explaining why I couldn’t start the job. Instead, I talked with my dad. He and I went out to a big parking lot at Point Mallard and worked on my technique. I reported for work the next day. It’s a good thing Bob didn’t ride along to see me driving his truck. It wasn’t pretty. But I learned and eventually became proficient at getting the job done.

My job with the Brunton Drug Company lasted several months. I worked right up until it was time to go to the University of Georgia. It was a great experience. I have always liked to ask questions of people with whom I work so I can learn. Bob taught me a lot about his operation.

When I heard President Obama’s comments about people who start businesses, how they didn’t do it by themselves, how they aren’t smarter, and how they don’t work harder, I thought about Bob Brunton. When he started his drug store, Bob had to take all the financial risk of failure. He had to stay open long hours each day and worked weekends, too, for years until he had a solid client base and could afford to work fewer hours. But even when I was there, Bob was putting in a lot of time. He didn’t take off for lunch. He just heated a little container in the microwave and kept going.

Over time, he extended his business to include a local branch of the Roche medical labs. Bob managed his drugstore and the medical lab at the same time. Each day, some of the medical lab work would come over to the pharmacy and we’d stop and pitch in on labeling containers and sorting. He was very shrewd that way. He knew the big drug stores would continue to cut into his business and took steps to protect himself.

Bob Brunton worked hard. Bob Brunton took financial risks. And Bob Brunton was smart about the way he conducted his business. I’m sorry to say that Bob didn’t live all that long after he retired. He had given a lot of himself to his work.

The president talked about how we can’t take credit because somebody helped us along the way. I think he was thinking mostly about the state when he made the remark. I can tell you that Bob Brunton helped me. He made a big impression both in his work ethic and in how he treated me. On my final day, it was time to close the store. Bob and I were the only people still on the premises. He gave me my final paycheck. Then, he pulled out a second check. Before he gave it to me, he said, “This is not a gift. This is not a loan. This is an obligation. When you are successful someday and you can help a young person, I expect you to do it.” He handed me a check for an additional $500. At that time, my pay for the part-time job was $120.

The president can build up the role of government all he wants. I concede that it is important. But he really should not downplay the contribution of the small businessmen and women who do so much to make our country great. But if that is the case the president wants to make, he’s got a long way to go to convince me, because I worked for Bob Brunton of Decatur, Alabama who ran a drug store.

If you really think "getting government out of the way" is enough to solve our economic problems at this stage, you're frankly delusional. More bread and circus entrepreneurs aren't going to help.

Right. The poor don't need jobs. What they need are generous government checks that "respect their human dignity."

I don't care how libertarian the state becomes - until Americans reject radical individualism and start recognizing the common good; start marrying again and having children (demographics being the most salient cause of this recession); start caring more about their families and communities than profit, pleasure, and comfort; until we stop killing babies and wallowing in filth; in short, until this country is turned around culturally, neither more government nor less government is going to make any difference. Carts, horses, and all the rest.

Demographics is a critical part, but the generous benefits that people of your economic persuasion wanted such as generous pensions and old age health care guarantees are the reason we are so deeply in debt. Our debt is now the main thing bringing us to our knees. The role demographics plays in this is that we have so skewed the natural ratio of elderly to youth that the youth cannot make up for the productivity of so many retirees, especially not now that we know that the same politicians who promised far beyond their means to deliver put equally greedy men and women in charge of managing those funds. Thus the role demographics played was primarily in guaranteeing that this would come to a head.

"solidarity with the poor" starts with noticing the poor, which conservatives of your stripe seldom do apart from slamming slackers, illegals, and welfare queens.

Jeff C., I'll have to confess to being a little surprised at the tone you're taking with Lydia. You really think she doesn't care about the poor? That she doesn't take seriously Jesus' counsels (when I was hungry, you gave me to eat)? Really? As to your defense of Obama (he "didn't say anything totally false unless you pull a sentence or two out of context"), you might recall that this is the man who believes his governmental authority via the HHS mandate reaches into our very consciences; who thinks contraception for all, including teenagers (he wouldn't want his daughter "punished with a baby") is the panacea for our sexual ills; backed up, of course, by his absolutely bloodthirsty tolerance for all manner of abortion including partial birth and the "letting die" of children who survive the other forms of assassination; who would shroud the perversion of homosexual relationships beneath the moral mantle of marriage...need I go on? If you wish to perpetuate the horrors brought on us by government overreach, this is your man. But if you really want our country to escape the moral hog trough you claim to abhor, this is not the man to take us in that direction. His understanding of government's proper role is so overarching, that his economic and moral visions are not separable, but of a piece.

He overemphasized something that's underemphasized on the other side, and he was being disingenuous as usual, but the essence of this particular message was not incorrect.

This may be true, but as with so much of American politics, what this really boils down to is a tribal issue.

A lot of people on the right could agree in the abstract that it isn't entirely a heroic effort of the individual will when a successful business is made. However, in this case, the idea is coming from someone (Obama) who they don't trust, and suspect of wanting to actualize these abstractly agreeable sentiments by way of some hateful policy that will expand the government's power and/or be ineffective or even harmful. You see the same thing in the other direction. Increasingly, the two Americas, red and blue, hate and fear each other and there doesn't seem to be any stopping the trend.

Let me ask this question, will the poor of this nation ultimately be helped or hurt by the recent HHS diktat (possibly illegal) that drastically undermines the 1996 welfare reform praised by patriotic men of both parties for many years?

Thanks, Paul, good concrete question. My answer to it probably goes without saying: Rolling back that welfare reform will be harmful to the poor of this country. I'm astonished, actually, that Obama can even do it over the heads of Congress, but as you say, it may be illegal. Not that that will necessarily stop him.

I've been thinking more about this question of what I would "say to the poor politically," apparently with reference to a federal politician on the campaign trail. It's worth bearing in mind that, if Obama's attack on entrepreneurs is taken to be something he "said to the poor," that's a shocking thought in itself: The politics of envy in a nutshell. What we're saying in essence is that what Obama had to "say to the poor" was to imply to them that it is entrepreneurs and wealth creators who are the real parasites on society. (A phrase I owe to Lawrence Auster's recent posts on this subject.) If what we have to "say to the poor politically" is to run down those who have built their businesses, that means we're feeding the poor the poison of envy. That's one thing we can be sure we should _not_ say to the poor politically.

Paul Cella has also pointed out the role of federalism. What if, in fact, much of "helping the poor" should be carried out at the state level? In that case, what _should_ a federal politician have to say? Even my ideas about law enforcement would chiefly concern local law enforcement, though perhaps there are ways (Arizona, anybody?) in which the federal government is hindering the state and local governments' attempts to keep law and order. In which case (see below) a politician running for federal office could mention ways in which the federal government could stop making matters worse. Does that count as something to "say to the poor politically"?

Or what about regulation? What if, in fact, much of what a federal politician should suggest we "do for the poor" is to lessen the regulatory burden on business in order not to stifle job creation at the grass roots? Well, I think a politician on the federal campaign trail _should_ say that, but when I have mentioned such things in this thread I've been derided as "delusional," as if I were presenting them as a surefire cure for all our economic ills. I trust I have cleared up any such misconception. Still, it _is_ something that a politician on the federal campaign trail could and should mention to "the poor" as something he could try to get the federal government to do to help matters for them. But maybe they wouldn't be excited about that. We can only try, because saying what is true is always a good thing to try.

Saying that turning back welfare reform will hurt the poor and that we want them to find independence whereas the Democrats want to keep them as party helots may not be popular with some of the poor, but nonetheless it is true and could and should be said.

As Jeffrey S. implies, it is a bad idea to demand that federal politicians find something catchy, something that the majority of poor people in the United States will like to hear, for them to say on the campaign trail.

The politics of envy and handouts may buy votes, but that's hardly the standard by which to judge its wisdom as a policy platform.

Matt, I have to say that I find it difficult to know how to respond non-sarcastically to your comment and therefore perhaps should not respond at all. But here is my measured (and brief) response:

We conservatives know that Obama is indeed antagonistic toward business and individual achievement and does indeed believe that Big Government is the savior. This statement of his that "you didn't build that" is an apotheosis of that attitude but scarcely our only evidence thereon. Moreover, we know that he is intensely hostile toward people like ourselves on multiple axes and has been aggressive, using the power of his office (and even powers his office does not have) to the end of bringing us and our institutions to heel in social areas. Of course we do not trust him, but to imply that this is some sort of tragedy of irrational polarization is simply to ignore the facts. We have every reason to distrust Barack Obama and to believe his policy ideas, both in social and economic areas, to be very bad ones indeed. He certainly does want to enact policies that expand the government's power and that are ineffective and even harmful. And this recent comment of his, far from being merely some overstatement of a truism, a needed "corrective" to the right's own "overemphases," reflects an important unifying theme in his bad ideas. Obama deserves all the ridicule he is getting on the blogosphere for that comment. But more: He needs to be taken seriously for the danger that he is, and always has been, to this country in so many ways. Do not say to us conservatives "Peace, peace." There is no peace. Most of us know that. If some do not, more's the pity.

Because we are not fools, we know that "do things together" is easily deciphered code for "the government does things.

When groups of people in a supposed democracy want to do things, they will sometimes try to get the government involved and sometimes they will not. Is there some stigma attached to collective action such that I should be worried that all kinds of groups, association, and religions engage in organized activity, even to the point of political lobbying (*the horror*)?

Right. The poor don't need jobs. What they need are generous government checks that "respect their human dignity."

No matter how much of the deified language of "job creators" you have bought into, a healthy middle class is the best driver of growth and consumption. More tax breaks for the wealthy “job creators” will not increase consumption by enough to make a difference, although it may increase savings in offshore accounts (this is a political thread so I had to go there), and mass consumption is what drives hiring. The idea that you are going to help the rich at the expense of the middle class (aka vulture capitalism), and let the poor beg for breadcrumbs, is economic insanity. If you want to help the poor, you stop letting the 1% carve ever bigger slices out of the economic pie.

The quote in context:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

No matter how much of the deified language of "job creators" you have bought into, a healthy middle class is the best driver of growth and consumption.

Step2, a healthy middle class with requires abundant jobs, especially middle class jobs. And consumption must come out of income or savings, so it is hardly "economic insanity" to dwell on these things.

Apropos of Step2's comment, I don't _at all_ think of "job creators" as a separate group from "a healthy middle class." The small businessmen I know, and many more I know of, are both job creators and also members of the middle class. Keeping them and their businesses healthy is part of keeping the middle class healthy.

At the risk of being controversial (when did that ever stop me?) I think that what America needs now is more individualism, individualism of the right sort, not less.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. The incoherence of the "individualism" charge tossed off so easily by the supposed cultural critics should be a warning flag to serious people. How that ever came to be as a blanket term accepted by Christians for what used to have real content filled terms never ceases to amaze me. If someone is being selfish and self-absorbed, that is indeed destructive to society and sinful. This is a term with content and maps to traditional Christian understandings. But individualistic? What is that? What are it's subparts, and if it has meaningful components to it why use a vague term that doesn't identify anything useful or real? It is an entirely loaded and politicized term.

It is also obscures and confuses. The whole Western idea about the importance of the individual is being undermined. Non-Western nations are shocked at how entire communities and even nations will stop what they are doing in their own interests and focus on saving an individual. We see this in war and peace. I'm not saying every such case is good or healthy in our media saturated world, but surely this shows the Western "individualistic" charges to be a farce. The charge is supposed to imply that we are concerned overmuch with ourselves at the expense of community, but our culture is known for doing the opposite to the shock of those in supposedly non-individualist cultures. What about community sacrifice *for* individuals? Is that what an culture does where each is only concerned with himself? I say again, the familiar charge is incoherent.

And just what is the role of community attitudes about individuals in how they are supposed to think about themselves? The fact is that Christianity is inherently "individualist" in a meaningful sense. The old-world cultures were honor cultures. Its funny how those who idealize the past and cultures of the past don't know much about them. Now all cultures are honor cultures to some degree in the sense that there is a rightful way to incorporate honor. But an "honor culture" is one that sacrifices the individual for the community. Not voluntary self-sacrifice, but conformity to punishment. Sounds great right? Public virtue displayed in the punishment of evil right? Well hold on. It doesn't punish evil, but merely what is against the interest of the elites of the society for whatever reason they have. It is just as effective at punishing those who don't conform to the evil in society. Read Hawthorne's story "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," and learn the old world ways. Or read history. Or read Faulkner, the latter who was arguable a defender of this and not a critic. Public shaming rituals enforce injustice at least as much as they enforce justice. Public shame in honor cultures is not connected to doing evil. See how those with deformities are treated. See how social outcasts are treated. What evil did they do? Romanticism about past cultures elevates the good features of honor cultures and ignores the bad features, and they are very bad. It isn't that people make mistakes, as do institutions, it is one of institutionalizing injustice. It intentionally punishes people and groups who don't do anything wrong, not by accident, but by intention. This is a critical and fundamental distinction. This honor culture aspect was the salient feature of the old world. The idea is that my self-worth is given to me by the community. It is corrupting and not the Christian way. Christianity stands against this. You do what's right by your conscience and your God no matter what the community thinks. This is a very big deal, not that the romantics would ever notice. They see gentlemen, but there was a lot less of that and the mythology surrounding this obscures the dark underside of sustaining social evil and control.

Contrasting our current American culture would involve a rational debate about alternatives, including our own American past (ours was an old-world culture too,) but it will never happen because even though the types of folk who make the "individualistic" charge want to say how much things have changed, they'll quickly pivot and subvert any discussion that gets specific by denying fundamental specific changes. Honor culture? What? Never heard of such a thing. Hawthorne and Faulkner who? The idea in the sort of just-so story engaged in here is that older cultures were the same, only better. This isn't criticism at all. Its a grand nullity. It's a farce that attempts to gain a political advantage without argumenti.

Is there some stigma attached to collective action such that I should be worried that all kinds of groups, association, and religions engage in organized activity, even to the point of political lobbying (*the horror*)?

If what they are lobbying for politically is more or bigger federal government programs, and even some state government programs, then I think they are almost certainly lobbying for badly misguided policies and for having government do something that could be done better a different way, if it needs to be done at all. So I think they're wrong. And I think Obama is promoting that wrong thinking by his speech. This has nothing to do with some vague "stigma" and everything to do with, y'know, disagreements about political policy. Which is part of what politics is about.

Thanks for the whole quote -- and I hadn't read the whole thing and it is even more muddle-headed than I thought. I particularly like the line about fire services at the end -- it is funny because most fire services in this country are volunteer, but the President probably doesn't know that since he comes from a big city that has a professional fire department (complete with bloated pension system.)

Anyway, I already quoted Jim Geraghty saying the speech is one big straw man attack on arguments conservatives never make (Paul made the same argument), when it's not making a banal observation that we can all agree to. Very strange and revealing all at the same time.

Ah, I did think of another thing about what "people like me" have to say politically to "the poor": The left in this country, and President Obama in particular, want to shut down religious charities. It's not like they are exactly being subtle about this. Yet they have the gall to try to put the burden of proof on conservatives to show our compassion for the poor? They have the gall to pretend that they have the moral high ground when it comes to helping the poor? You have got to be kidding. I'll tell you something I suggest doing for the poor: Run Christian hospitals. Run Catholic and other Christian adoption agencies. Run many Christian charities. Oh, yeah, that's already being done. And good for them. As for the government, get the heck out of the business of harassing them and dogging them and trying to put them out of business. I'll happily and proudly run on that political platform. Just a thought.

There’s a standard way for Americans to celebrate accomplishment. First, we call an individual onto the stage and say what great things that person has done. Then that person gives a thank-you speech that begins “I couldn’t have done this without…” and a list of people who helped along the way. That’s the way we’ve always done it. Everyone knows we all get help in life (and sometimes just get lucky). But we have always started with the individual and then worked out. It is not part of the American mindset to begin with the collective and admonish individuals for thinking too highly of their contribution.

Jeffrey S,
It is a standard conservative ploy to give us stories about small businessmen and then use them to enact policies for the benefit of big corporations and bankers.

The stable republic requires distributed property in the sense of Chesterton or several property in the sense of Hayek. From the current experience, I would add that it also requires non-anonymous property.

A nation of a million capitalists and 300 million employees is an unstable entity, It may go either socialist or servile.

There must be a political effort to discourage gigantic enterprises that are build from stock market. As Chesterton said

"The employers talk about "private enterprise", as if there was
anything private about modern enterprise. Its combines are as big as many
commonwealths; amd things advertised in large letters on the sky cannot plead
the shy privileges of privacy."
The New Jerusalem

Chesterton said a lot of things. Like this expressed a few sentences from the one you quoted that capitalists were only worried about their profits:

The Capitalists say Bolshevism as one might say Boojum. It is merely a mystical and imaginative word suggesting horror.

But he died before seeing the wisdom of thinking that no extreme and worse consequences should necessarily be expected to grow out of these horribly bad ideas, and the economic issues weren't the half of it. Stalin's labors would likely have changed Chesterton's mind if he'd seen the effects.

Look, quoting Chesterton in this context isn't going to get you anything because of his gadfly nature and the extreme ferment of the times he lived in. He thought capitalism was a "bankrupt business", but now those who quote him think it is too profitable.

"The Labour problem is the attempt to have the democracy of Paris without the slavery of Rome. Between the Roman Republic and the French Republic something had happened. Whatever else it was, it was the abandonment of the ancient and fundamental human habit of slavery; the numbering of men for necessary labour as the normal foundation of society, even a society in which citizens were free and equal. . . . London, handing on the lamp from Paris as well as Rome, is faced with a new problem touching the old practice of getting the work of the world done somehow. . . . Capitalism attempted it by combining political equality with economic inequality; it assumed the rich could always hire the poor. But Capitalism seems to me to have collapsed; to be not only a discredited ethic but a bankrupt business."

" . . . What made the difference? What was it that had happened between the rise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the French Republic? Why did the equal citizens of the first take it for granted that there would be slaves? Why did the equal citizens of the second take it for granted that there would not be slaves? How had this immemorial institution disappeared in the interval, so that nobody even dreamed of it or suggested it?

And the slavery business is somewhat amusing. He already knew that 19th century slavery rested on "sham science about races," though many here learned this yet. For some reason he doesn't think the pseudo-scientific collapse, the extreme brutality of 19th century slavery that made the most severe racists wince in sympathy if confronted by the results, and the acceptance in the western world of the Christian idea of the value of work. And still he wonders what happened to the institution, and isn't sure it may not return as a viable system of work? So you add it up and ask yourself why we should consider him reliable on anything like economics or politics? I just don't see it. That wasn't his value to us.

It's a nice rhetorical trick to equate social cooperation with government spending and mention firefighting, infrastructure, research, and education as examples of government spending when the majority of federal government spending and the largest portion of state government spending is devoted to ever increasing entitlements (which are a form social cooperation if Ponzi schemes constitute social cooperation). And although a business (which is likewise an institution of social cooperation) may not have built public roads or schools (from which it benefits), that business helps pay the taxes and the wages of the employees who pay taxes which make it possible for the government to hire Obama's overpaid public union cronies to provide those roads and third-rate public schools. Of course, if Obama were not such a devout statist, he might recognize the limits and costs of collection action by the federal government and rely more on "a thousand points of light" or little platoons, but that's something that the centralizing social engineers of the Obama administration simply cannot abide.

Let’s get one thing straight for the sake of our readers. I don’t trust Obama to speak the truth to anyone, at any time; I know he’s a classic demagogue; I know his actual policies are disastrous for the country; I know he’s a militant leftist with contempt for the private sector; I know his administration is oozing with corruption; etc. I’m not voting for Obama or defending his policies. I’m going to put a “Change It Back” bumper sticker on my truck.

This should be old news to you: your anti-Obama tirades, when directed at me, are bizarre to say the least. Are you attempting to portray me as a closet Obama supporter? Or are you trying to distract from the weakness of your original post? Perhaps you have me confused with our old friend Al?

What I see happening here is an irrational blindness that is unwilling to acknowledge even the slightest good in the words, actions, or person of one's adversaries. If I told you President Obama was a smart dresser, you’d criticize his suit and hint that I must be a closet sympathizer.

Denigrating the value of entrepreneurship and making us all into yet-more-dependent zombies, as Obama is trying to do, isn't going to save the life of a single baby, born or unborn.

Nothing but two sentences taken out of context in Obama’s speech – yes, context matters, and you don’t get to choose the context to fit your interpretation - can possibly be construed as “denigrating entrepreneurship”. For crying out loud. I could have said those words myself. It doesn’t matter what Obama secretly meant by them, that he was disingenuous, or that he made a caricature of the conservative position: what he said was true. You made a caricature of the actual message, and the effect of your caricature is to deprive conservatives of the language of common sense.

You are the one who said that conservatives of "my type" have nothing to say to the poor, which is rather breathtaking when one considers all the work that has indeed been done by free-market think-tanks on these very issues.

I stand by that. I’ve seen nothing from you in terms of policy proposals - or from these free-market think tanks in twenty years of reading - that offers any concrete hope for the poor in this country. Yes, there are lots of “good ideas” floating about, some more workable than others, but they mostly ignore the reality of the human condition out of deference to ideology.

Ultimately nothing is a cure-all, and, yes, whether you happen to like it or not, a lot is going to come down to behavior change.

And whether you happen to like it or not, behavior change can be effected by government. A real job, for example, is a great behavior modification tool. The state spends billions of dollars on the poor for everything but actual jobs.

I also continue to maintain, which you evidently believe is irrelevant, but which I have stated ‘in my own words’ time and time again, that a healthy economy generally is good for everyone, but for the poor most of all.

Right, I believe a healthy economy is irrelevant when it comes to helping the poor. Your penchant for distortion and misrepresentation seems to be limitless.

Matt, I have to say that I find it difficult to know how to respond non-sarcastically to your comment …

Nice to see a confession from you along these lines. Lucky Matt. Still, you don't sound very sorry.

If you say so. But I doubt my ear deceives me so well that I don't know something different when I hear it.

My defense of Obama is limited to opposing a grave distortion of the meaning of his actual words.

When you just finished saying he's a demagogue who can't tell the truth? When his 'actual words' (his "we do things together" shtick) are a lying subterfuge of an attempt to justify getting government into every facet of our lives? A government whose power to do anything, like build a bridge or a road, comes from the money it takes from us, depending ultimately therefore upon an energetic private sector? And whose philosophy would, if adopted by a sufficient number of states, as it has been in Massachusetts and Illinois, literally destroy the charitable works of the Catholic Church? Frankly, I don't know why the ad hominem was brought out against Lydia at all. Seems to me we ought to be discussing whether Obama's words reflect a sane understanding of how an economy prospers, and whether his policies hurt the poor. But no, instead, Lydia has nothing politically to say to them.

My defense of Obama is limited to opposing a grave distortion of the meaning of his actual words.

Would this be similar to the grave distortion that you and a few other Catholic conservatives made of my and Lydia's arguments a few threads back where you twisted our argument that welfare sufficiently softens consequences to make vice seem not really dangerous into an argument that welfare actually incentivizes people to commit vice (we got lectured that it makes conservatives sound stupid when "we say" that women "get pregnant to make money," as though that were even remotely our point)

"The whole Western idea about the importance of the individual is being undermined."

Yeah, and it's a good thing too. Western individualism has been rotten ever since Hobbes, Locke, et al sh*tcanned the traditional Christian understanding of the individual and put autonomous man on the throne instead of God.

What's causing the impasse here is the refusal of the libertarian/mainstream Right's representatives to consider the fact (and yes, it is a fact) that Enlightenment-based economic "individualism" and Enlightenment-based sexual/cultural individualism have precisely the same root. Wall Street greed and the porn epidemic have identical etiologies.

"The employers talk about 'private enterprise', as if there was anything private about modern enterprise. Its combines are as big as many commonwealths; amd things advertised in large letters on the sky cannot plead the shy privileges of privacy." ~~~Chesterton, The New Jerusalem

Great quote, Gian. These folks act as if the only difference between WalMart and your local hardware or market is the square footage.

Yeah, and it's a good thing too. Western individualism has been rotten ever since Hobbes, Locke, et al sh*tcanned the traditional Christian understanding of the individual and put autonomous man on the throne instead of God.

It's being replaced by a communitarian ethic that is even more toxic as it combines every aspect of the individualism you denounce with a communistic ethic to subsidize your neighbor when his indulgence in radical individualism harms him. For the common good, mind you. God will judge us if we refuse to cough up tax dollars to provide social programs for people who are unrepentant sinners. It says so right there in the Good Book, next to the verses about reorganizing society such that non-Christians are compelled by force of law to carry out the Works of Mercy.

I stand by that. I’ve seen nothing from you in terms of policy proposals - or from these free-market think tanks in twenty years of reading - that offers any concrete hope for the poor in this country.

Jeff, this is just kind of astonishing. I've answered you again and again in this thread, contentfully in my own words in numerous comments and, yes, by referring you to the work of free-market writers who have written much more about the subject very intelligently than I have done and whose work I'm not obliged to reproduce. In any event, based on this comment of yours, it evidently would be pointless for me to do as they have done and write reams on the subject; you would just reject it all out of hand.

I cannot figure out what, exactly, you want. It _sounds_ from the phrase "concrete hope" like perhaps you want me or others to present policy proposals that are something akin to a guarantee of better times and a better world and individual economic success.

But that would be to mislead. There are no guarantees in this life, and neither government nor, for that matter, private enterprise can provide them. More: I'm a pessimist about our current economic situation. (In this regard, Jeffrey S. is a good corrective to me, as he is an optimist.) Since I'm a pessimist, I especially wouldn't want to offer people "concrete hope" in the sense of saying, "Do what I recommend and there's a very high probability that all will be well."

If anything, I think you should respect my attempted honesty in this regard. You have disdain for telling people that if they just work hard they can all be a Horatio Alger success. I won't do that, though you insinuated above that I would say that. I think that if they work hard, study, and behave morally they are *significantly less likely* to be abjectly poor, however, than if they don't. And if the government leaves them alone in their attempted work and business, they are all the less helpless, and their individual work and effort becomes, as it should be, all the more relevant to their success. Which is what I call "justice."

What I suggest are things that I believe have *the best hope* of making things better, including the entire economy healthier. I can do nothing more. If you are going to reject them out of hand because they don't meet your elusive criteria for "offering concrete hope," there's no point in my continuing.

The state spends billions of dollars on the poor for everything but actual jobs.

Okay, so this seems to imply that you are looking for me or others to suggest federal jobs programs in which the government is the direct employer. Maybe that's not what you want, but I'm trying to glean what I can. Well, I don't think that's a good idea. So I'm not going to suggest that.

Right, I believe a healthy economy is irrelevant when it comes to helping the poor. Your penchant for distortion and misrepresentation seems to be limitless.

Whether you do or do not, suggesting that we improve the economy generally and pointing out that how to do so is a fraught and complicated issue and that I do have ideas on the subject doesn't seem to have mitigated your ire. So you don't consider that my suggestion that government stop damaging the economy "counts" as "having something to say to the poor." In other words, you treat what I say along those lines as irrelevant. Which was my point in the bit to which you are here responding angrily.

Bill says,

Seems to me we ought to be discussing whether Obama's words reflect a sane understanding of how an economy prospers, and whether his policies hurt the poor. But no, instead, Lydia has nothing politically to say to them.

"It's being replaced by a communitarian ethic that is even more toxic as it combines every aspect of the individualism you denounce with a communistic ethic to subsidize your neighbor when his indulgence in radical individualism harms him."

No doubt. But while cyanide may be more poisonous than arsenic, that doesn't make arsenic a good thing. The Right has to realize that individualism of this sort is toxic wherever it rears its head. Lasch tried to tell the Left this but didn't get very far. The Right, so far, hasn't had its equivalent of Lasch.

Your wild claim about what conservatives of Lydia's "particular brand" have to say has been answered. If you do not like the answers -- and clearly you do not -- then you are free to engage with the ideas in a post of your own, presenting reasoned analysis and evidence to back up your position.

But the personal tone of your attacks is not simply a mirror of Lydia's tone with you, which has been quite moderate by comparison. For you to pretend otherwise as an excuse for your manner here is both dishonest and unchivalrous, and you owe Lydia an apology.

I stand by that. I’ve seen nothing from you in terms of policy proposals - or from these free-market think tanks in twenty years of reading - that offers any concrete hope for the poor in this country.

Then you're just plain ignorant, since some of them have been pushing for years to remove licensing barriers across the country. The Institute for Justice has done yeoman's work challenging everything from licensing barriers, to unconstitutional interstate trade restraints (on behalf of a small vineyard that sued a state for an illegal interstate tax), to assaulting the use of eminent domain against entrepreneurs. Cato, for all of their wrongs on immigration and some other policies, has likewise tended to go along similar lines.

These policies are the single greatest barriers to the proliferation of small businesses you and Gian want. The amount of protectionism for incumbents at the state level is just breathtaking.

NM,

No doubt. But while cyanide may be more poisonous than arsenic, that doesn't make arsenic a good thing. The Right has to realize that individualism of this sort is toxic wherever it rears its head. Lasch tried to tell the Left this but didn't get very far. The Right, so far, hasn't had its equivalent of Lasch.

That may be true, but there is also a strong tendency to mask selfish individualism and libertinism in the language of "the common good." This is why many individualists don't take talk about the common good seriously. I was talking to a liberal friend of mine who has a severely autistic son and mentioned to him that if we threw off every fornicator, drug user, alcoholic, chain smoker and glutton from the public assistance roster, we'd have so much cash that we could put up every mentally handicapped kid in 5 star public housing for life or give their parents a well-paid live-in nurse to care for them. It never occurred to him how many of the people who use these programs are not naturally unfortunate like his son, but closer to him in potential, but made selfish choices. The main function of private charity aside from helping the repentant needy was to provide a mechanism to make the unrepentant needy suffer the consequences of their choices (emphasis on choice, so we're clear that the opposition is mainly to welfare for acts in which the individual had nearly or full agency to not be there).

The way I see it, NM, is that our welfare state exists mainly to serve those who self-inflict while sacrificing those born unlucky or rendered severely harmed by forces beyond their reasonable control. This is why we have debates on ending the lives of certain classes of children, but not letting unrepentant drug addicts die in the gutter next to the hospital. Our society values the lives of drug addicts and armed robbers more than unborn children (or increasingly born children with severe disabilities). No matter what we may say, we reveal our collective hand in how we tend to approach these things. Consequently, this is partly why I think Jeff is delusional. A culture that is more likely to prosecute a man for shooting dead a robber who "might not have threatened the victim's life" than hang an abortionist from the nearest tree for murder one is borderline, if not outright reprobate.

Great quote from Murray given by Mark at 11:13. Murray's point underscores the reasonableness of American outrage at Obama's comment. To "begin with the collective and admonish individuals for thinking too highly of their contribution" is _precisely_ to engage in the collectivist thinking that I and many, many others see in Obama's comments.

I just wanted to add to Lydia's praise, but for your extended jeremiad at 10:30 PM last night. Ironically, this sort of gets back to the original idea of Lydia's post, which is that the Christian ideas of God and man are a much better foundation for society than the liberal ideas of man as God. Indeed, your wise observation that it is Christianity itself that has a strong foundational basis for respecting individual efforts (through the idea of Imagio Dei) against various pagan societies of the past (and liberal recreations today) reminded me of David Hart Bentley's book about this subject, Atheist Delusions. I think you and I may have talked in comboxes about this before, but you really reminded me of him when you were describing the history of honor cultures. You and I have our differences, but on this subject I say, keep preaching brother!!!

Mike T, I agree with you. I just don't think that the right way to tackle the pernicious individualism of the Left is to counter it with the pernicious individualism of the (mainstream) Right. This seems to me to be what Jeff C. is getting at, and it's not in any way "delusional."

Yep, and Walter Williams has written a lot about the negative effects of Davis-Bacon on employment, especially for less educated laborers. Lots of stuff out there.

Reason has an article up right now on how Obama-lead policies are further destroying the job opportunities for my generation (I'm ~first year of the millennial) by trying to outlaw unpaid internships, raise minimum wage and other measures which make marginally skilled workers harder to hire. This is the kind of thing which Jeff just flat out ignores because it doesn't fit into his view that there are even many libertarians who are genuinely concerned about the poor. If you oppose welfare statism, you have "nothing to say politically to the poor."

NM,

This seems to me to be what Jeff C. is getting at, and it's not in any way "delusional."

The problem I have with Jeff, and the reason I call him delusional, is that he tends to strongly downplay any role that welfare statism might inherently have in promoting the culture of which he disapproves so strongly. He also tends to ignore the fact that most people who are strong advocates of it tend to be anti-Christian, so it's pointless to talk about political ideals (Christian welfare statism) in a world where the factors necessary won't converge. He's defending a man (Obama) who he knows is an intractable opponent of Christianity because of his opposition to "radical individualism" (again, given our welfare-warfare state, it's dubious whether we're really individualists or just take the libertine position be it individualist or collectivist)

But the personal tone of your attacks is not simply a mirror of Lydia's tone with you, which has been quite moderate by comparison. For you to pretend otherwise as an excuse for your manner here is both dishonest and unchivalrous, and you owe Lydia an apology.

I've been unchivalrous, have I?

You're right, of course, but Lydia's constant sarcasm, abrasiveness, mischaracterizations, distortions, and unfairness in debate don't exactly inspire chivalry. In fact, in my feeble efforts to go tit-for-tat with Lydia's "style", I find myself holding back and unable to go all the way. There are lines I won't cross - not with her, anyway. I think I've been quite moderate by comparison.

Having said that, Lydia's a good lady and you're a lucky fellow. I have immense respect for the strength of her character and intellect. I've sincerely enjoyed our past friendship and have benefited from her sound advice and prayers. I have defended her against the criticisms of others, many times. But just as getting behind the wheel of a car sometimes turns good people into monsters, I think political internet debate is probably not the best hobby for Lydia McGrew. Just my opinion, take it or leave it.

I apologize to everyone who has been puzzled by my admitted nastiness without knowing the backstory. I do apologize to Lydia for not sharing my concerns months ago, and in private. That would have been the gentlemanly thing to do. In the meantime, it's best that I end my association with this weblog, as it clearly doesn't bring out the best in me either.

Outlawing unpaid internships is a good idea. Although some jobs would be eliminated, many more jobs would be created because it would be impossible for businesses to use slave labor instead of hiring entry level workers. The rise of unpaid internships is one of the main reasons that entry level work has dried up. I'm 100% behind that idea.

"your wise observation that it is Christianity itself that has a strong foundational basis for respecting individual efforts (through the idea of Imagio Dei) against various pagan societies of the past (and liberal recreations today) reminded me of David Hart Bentley's book about this subject, Atheist Delusions."

Wouldn't claim DBH's support so readily. He's no fan of the Right's economic individualism either. He had a column not too long ago in First Things in which he commented on conservatives' ability to spin their way around the New Testament warnings about wealth, and his well-known essay 'Christ and Nothing' makes no distinctions between the various manifestations of the exercise of autonomous will. Right-liberalism is still liberalism, even if certain people deny its existence.

orly. Obama may be correct but it is the half-truth of socialism-marxism. America became a world power not by government actions but by the work of industrious individuals who were left alone by government but with their freedoms protected by limited government and free markets. This is not what Obama means when he speaks of government. He means totalitarian control of the people. Why do you obfuscate the difference?

Outlawing unpaid internships is a good idea. Although some jobs would be eliminated, many more jobs would be created because it would be impossible for businesses to use slave labor instead of hiring entry level workers. The rise of unpaid internships is one of the main reasons that entry level work has dried up. I'm 100% behind that idea.

The French example would seem to contradict you on that. The French have gone down that route and their youth unemployment is through the roof even compared to ours (ours being about 25-40% unemployment and underemployment in most stats).

Employers recognize the sad fact that most of our graduates offer very little value compared to the compensation they expect. Many of my peers couldn't code their way out of a paper bag with a flashing neon sign pointing to the exit. Those that could often didn't know the first thing about how to use even basic build tools or other things which are just part of daily life in the workplace. For all intents and purposes, they literally didn't know about half of what they needed to know just to function as workers on a daily basis.

All you would do is deny many graduates the chance to make up for being less aggressive in their education in college.

bama may be correct but it is the half-truth of socialism-marxism. America became a world power not by government actions but by the work of industrious individuals who were left alone by government but with their freedoms protected by limited government and free markets. This is not what Obama means when he speaks of government. He means totalitarian control of the people. Why do you obfuscate the difference?

1. I'm a socialist
2. America become a success for a number of different reasons. Trying to attribute America's success to a singular factor is far too simplistic, which means that I am inclined to dismiss your argument out of hand.

The French example would seem to contradict you on that. The French have gone down that route and their youth unemployment is through the roof even compared to ours (ours being about 25-40% unemployment and underemployment in most stats).

Jeff S: Thanks for your kind words in your 11:55 AM comment. And I think you restated and summarized the point I wished to make (and I think Lydia too) very, very well. Exactly. I haven't read David Hart Bentley's book, but I'll check it out. If you're interested in the topic of old-world cultures and the differences with later ones, a great starting place is "Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South." New England was an honor culture too at an earlier time of course, as was everywhere else. It was simply the old world culture in about any given place at an earlier time. The South was not unique at all, as the book makes clear. It is impossible not to have views of the past, but the truth is that it is fairly difficult to have an informed view of it because it was so different. But it is important because many of our current views turn on our perceptions of it, right or wrong.

What we need is cultural critics that actually critique, but what we have is pretend critics who don't but rather sloganize. Actual critiques would be welcome from me, but faux-critiques that are simply disguised political views not so much. I have my political views, but I want to have an actual debates on merits of the lower-level details. And I've not forgotten the link you provided me some time ago pointing out D. A. Carson on "Individualism."

And FWIW, the only differences I think we have is on the subject of IQ. On that I'm simply in the camp of skeptics such as Aryaman Shalizi. Not trying to argue here about that, but that's where you could go to see great contrary evidence that aligns with my views if you are curious.

"The whole Western idea about the importance of the individual is being undermined."

Yeah, and it's a good thing too. Western individualism has been rotten ever since Hobbes, Locke, et al sh*tcanned the traditional Christian understanding of the individual and put autonomous man on the throne instead of God.

Don't ever change Nice. What I meant was that these attacks on "individualism" are attempts to undermine this western idea. I didn't mean to say it was working --it isn't.

I got the same "Hobbes and Locke is the basis for the American political system" speech in 7th grade too. Honestly. I can still see Ms. Cox telling us that in her short skirts. She wasn't my favorite teacher for nothing. Oh come on, I was in 7th grade. But I learned later in life by my own investigations that the connection is extremely loose at best. There are problems with both Hobbes and Locke, and I could critique them as well. Problem is, our system owes far less to them than other things so attacking them isn't effective as you seem to think. Our system owes more to the Reformation and the church in America than Hobbes and Locke. Not that there aren't problems with the Reformation, but your info hasn't been updated since when you were young I"m guessing. If the Tooth Fairy were thought to be source of our system, you're be attacking her since you're so displeased with the nation now. Such indirection is quite transparent.

we got lectured that it makes conservatives sound stupid when "we say" that women "get pregnant to make money," as though that were even remotely our point

Because it was the point Lydia made repeatedly with her anecdote in that thread. Whatever point you were remotely making, if it was combined with Lydia's it acquired the flaws of her point.

If what they are lobbying for politically is more or bigger federal government programs, and even some state government programs, then I think they are almost certainly lobbying for badly misguided policies and for having government do something that could be done better a different way, if it needs to be done at all. So I think they're wrong.

So you think the $1.3 billion in federal money (with $1 billion directed to infrastructure) that Romney and others obtained for the 2002 Olympics was wrong in a Socialist way? By your principle they should have relied only on their corporate sponsorships and local fundraising.

So you think the $1.3 billion in federal money (with $1 billion directed to infrastructure) that Romney and others obtained for the 2002 Olympics was wrong in a Socialist way?

A bad idea, anyway. Very probably. Santorum seems to think so. Step2, if you think I'm some kind of mindless Romney supporter you didn't read much of what I was writing and the flak I took about McCain back in '08.

And Hobbes and Locke don't owe anything to the Reformation? I'm talking about modernity in general, not just "our system."

Yeah, I know. The US is the exemplar of the West so you're attacking the West through the US. It's not an either/or is it? This is a familiar approach isn't it? Do you know of any other groups that you know of that do that?

"If the Tooth Fairy were thought to be source of our system, you're be attacking her since you're so displeased with the nation now."

Heh. You're the one who thinks that anti-bourgeoisism is the hidden reason for anyone's cultural displeasure. Which view is more of a fantasy?

I've never said that and don't think that. You might want to check out Nietzsche and see how much you share though. ;)

Step2, if you think I'm some kind of mindless Romney supporter you didn't read much of what I was writing and the flak I took about McCain back in '08.

Are you writing about presidential politics or not? If you don't want me to bring up political candidates I have to wonder why you are doing so yourself. Btw, I recall that the flak you took was because you actually condemned some of McCain's policy positions, not because you stayed silent about him. With the Romneybot and its malfunctioning communications port it is admittedly more difficult to know what his policies will be, but if Romney and Obama are in fact closer on policy issues and philosophical outlooks than you care to admit, that is a poor reason to roundly condemn one and not the other.

In the interests of promoting blog peace and unity, and to bring the left together with the right, I thought I'd quote this post in its entirety from one of my favorite bloggers, "Sonic Charmer":

I don’t mean to shock longtime RWCG readers but after some deep introspection I realize that President Obama is right: nobody built their success in a vacuum, and any success is predicated on the existence of a background of government and infrastructure. (I know that literally everyone on the right believes that success actually happens in a vacuum and that all aspects of government/infrastructure are utterly unimportant to life, but they are WRONG. I know that now, thanks to President Obama.)

As a result, I have worked out a policy that (I believe) follows directly from the, let’s call it, Obama Principle and am ready to unveil it for you today:

I believe that all Americans should be required to give 5 (five) percent of all their income each year to the government (federal, state, and local combined, to be divvied into some appropriate proportion), to defray the cost of this infrastructure and governance backbone that was so crucial to their success.

I’m not sure what the current setup is, but whatever it is, the sooner it can be supplanted and replaced with my suggestion – or something very similar to it – the better. Everyone should give 5 percent. After all, their success didn’t come about on their own. So: 5 percent.

As justification for this proposed taxation policy I need only point to President Obama’s intelligent speech. His speech is a perfectly good argument for the policy I am proposing here. Conversely, the policy I am proposing here is a perfectly good and entirely sufficient way to satisfy and carry out the principles implied by Obama’s speech.

He's great, isn't he? You all should be checking him out on a regular basis.

if Romney and Obama are in fact closer on policy issues and philosophical outlooks than you care to admit, that is a poor reason to roundly condemn one and not the other.

Step, when Romney gives me reason to believe that he is anywhere near as hostile to private enterprise, anywhere near the true, committed, ideological collectivist, that Obama is, I'll definitely consider posting that evidence. So far I haven't seen it. Heck, Romney doesn't appear to have the passion that Obama has to _be_ an ideologue. Would that he were, though on the right side.

Btw, Step2: A word to the wise: Barack Obama is the President of the United States, one of the most powerful men in our country. The fact that it is July of 2012 does not magically make every blogospheric expression of horror, anger, and outrage about the actions of the President of the United States into an invitation to "Well, so's your mother" matches concerning the Republican candidate for President. So, please: If I _dare_ to criticize the Obama-Messiah in future posts, do _not_ treat that as some sort of prima facie campaign discussion on the grounds that Obama is a "candidate." He's the President. If I think he's messed up or that he or his administration have done or said something particularly outrageous, I'll criticize him as much as I like without having to go into tangential discussions about whether or not something you dredge up from the past about the former Governor of Massachusetts is similar if one squints and looks at it sideways under florescent lighting. I trust this is sufficiently clear.

So, please: If I _dare_ to criticize the Obama-Messiah in future posts, do _not_ treat that as some sort of prima facie campaign discussion on the grounds that Obama is a "candidate." He's the President.

In other words, you are writing about presidential politics, but one side is off-limits. Clear as mud.

...something you dredge up from the past about the former Governor of Massachusetts is similar if one squints and looks at it sideways under florescent lighting.

This is beyond ridiculous. You haven't once condemned Romney for passing a collectivist, statist healthcare law, with all sorts of restrictions and regulations on Private Enterprise, hallowed be its name. As for Obama being hostile to private enterprise, what sort of socialist doesn't nationalize the banks that helped create the Great Recession? Instead, the perfectly normal, sane reaction of passing laws to limit some of their wilder financial gambles and total abuse of the foreclosing process is portrayed on the Right as sins against man and nature. How dare anyone block Wall Street from raping and pillaging Main Street, it's one of the Ten Commandments don't you know.

You never know, Step: Maybe that's because from my perspective Romney is just "some guy" who has never been and never will be President, who has no power over me whatsoever, and Barack Obama not only is now, but will likely continue to be, the President of the most powerful nation in the world, which happens to be my nation, who both has and takes (if he doesn't already have them) power to make things very difficult indeed for people like me. Just a thought. If I want to write about the election, I'll write about the election. If I want to write about the President, I'll write about the President. The two don't automatically become identical because Step2 says they are.

My blog posts, my rules. You can whine "unfair" all you like, but this isn't party politics. I'm a conservative, not a Republican. This is conservative politics, and I'm interested in the evils of *the President*. I'm not really even all that interested in the concept of his being a candidate. Romney is not my prima facie representative, and I am not prima facie responsible for anything he has done. He's not "my side," and I'm not "his side." But Obama, the President, is my enemy. That, I'm clear about.

You haven't once condemned Romney for passing a collectivist, statist healthcare law, with all sorts of restrictions and regulations on Private Enterprise, hallowed be its name.

Well, Romneycare has been criticized here at W4. In addition to which, there is an important political distinction - under conservative principles - between the state doing it and the federal government doing it. The state is per se a smaller entity, a more local level of community, which can regulate more narrowly according to a smaller sphere. Admittedly, Romneycare still took private decisions into government hands, but by being a state action it wasn't as egregious a violation of subsidiarity. As the Supreme Court put it: the state DOES have plenary political power, unlike the federal gov. When the state uses political powers that belong to the state, the state is not violating federalism. When the federal government arrogates to itself those very self-same state powers, it is violating both the Constitutional federal order and subsidiarity.

I noticed, with some surprise, the scepticism about the merits of American individualism that surfaces in this sometimes acerbic discussion. But collectivist sentiments have always been in the American background while the so-called 'frontier spirit' became a sort of cultural icon.

According to Paul Johnson, a propensity toward co-operative solutions of social and political problems can be traced back to Puritan influence in 17th century America. Citing Perry Miller's views as an historian of the Puritan mind, Johnson says, and I've paraphrased a bit:

They (the Puritans) were communalists who believed that the government should interfere and direct and lead as much as it could in all aspects of life. And when necessary it should coerce and discipline too. Puritans saw the individualist as a dangerous loner, meat for the Devil to feed on. As one of them, John Cotton, put it, "Society in all sorts of human affairs is better than solitariness". Puritans did not accept that an individual had the right to assert himself in religious or indeed in any matters……

"I noticed, with some surprise, the scepticism about the merits of American individualism that surfaces in this sometimes acerbic discussion. But collectivist sentiments have always been in the American background"

False, tired binary. There is more than one sort of American individualism, first of all, and secondly, not all anti-individualist ideas are due to "collectivist sentiments."

Sorry to see you go, Jeff C. Might want to try another weblog where folks would be less overtly hostile to your ideas. Capitalism is the big touch-me-not around here, especially if you're trying to touch it from starboard.

Might want to try another weblog where folks would be less overtly hostile to your ideas.

NM, I have to point out: This was my post and thread, and Jeff C., I'm sorry to say, is the one who came into it quite hostilely from the outset, much to my sadness and surprise. Moreover, you may not have noticed, but I have in the past _rarely_ posted at this blog about economic issues. That restraint was _precisely_ because of my having both colleagues (or specifically a colleague) and commentators who are less pro-market than I am. At a more mainstream conservative site you would get far more economic posts. Perhaps you don't realize that, but it's true. This comment of Obama's was so egregious that, since I had an idea about it that I hadn't seen blogged elsewhere (about religion), I decided to write about it. But if you think this site has been some kind of Cato Institute Satellite State, you're definitely barking up the wrong tree and simply not being observant. I must say, however, that when my restraint on such subjects is met in this fashion, I am much inclined to wonder why I shouldn't say more.

What does that mean? Why don't you explain a bit more instead of just dropping ex cathedra assertions into your observations?

The point of my comment was to notice the long history of 'co-operative sentiment' in American society. If it still lingers, maybe Puritan traits in the American character aren't quite extirpated. This is a useful correction to the unsophisticated idea that all-out individualism is always at the heart of the so-called 'American way'. That's what many European believe, and it's one of the sources of anti-Americanism in a continent where government interference is expected and thought desirable in almost every aspect of economic and social activity.

According to Paul Johnson, a propensity toward co-operative solutions of social and political problems can be traced back to Puritan influence in 17th century America. Citing Perry Miller's views as an historian of the Puritan mind, Johnson says, and I've paraphrased a bit:

They (the Puritans) were communalists who believed that the government should interfere and direct and lead as much as it could in all aspects of life. And when necessary it should coerce and discipline too. Puritans saw the individualist as a dangerous loner, meat for the Devil to feed on. As one of them, John Cotton, put it, "Society in all sorts of human affairs is better than solitariness". Puritans did not accept that an individual had the right to assert himself in religious or indeed in any matters……

Individualism did assert itself, therefore, even in Puritan New England. Indeed in a sense it had to, for America was a do-it-yourself society. I don't have time to key out more than that (google books is your friend but doesn't allow copy/paste) but all would profit from what follows.

And that is exactly right. If "individualism" is so bad, why is do-it-yourself such a good thing? Doing things yourself is very, very good and very deeply set in the American character. And it is a very good thing. Working with one's hands, one's mind, and the tools available to us at the time is a wonderful thing. This too is a deeply Christian idea. Those arguing against "individualism" should tell me why doing things yourself is bad. Because that is all "individualism" means in the generic expansive way it is used. There is a reason they don't say "self-absorption," the sinful activity.

Besides which, regarding Perry, his thesis of the "errand in the wilderness"--no matter how well known and how great a stature he had-- is weak. Read Bozeman's "To Live Ancient Lives" and you'll see him take apart Perry's thesis pretty convincingly. Perry Miller needs to be examined critically on a number of things.

Hmm...by his own reasoning then, getting into Harvard, becoming a senator, and even becoming President is no achievement of his - we did it, not him, so he should be thanking us every time he opens his mouth. He has done nothing.

Actually, in his case, that is probably far more treu than any others. Maybe that's why he is so adamt about this - that was his personal expereince, so he thinks everyone got ahead that way.

'Those arguing against "individualism" should tell me why doing things yourself is bad. Because that is all "individualism" means in the generic expansive way it is used.'

The problem is that this understanding of individualism, which has its root in the Christian idea of human dignity, has become conflated with the pernicious corresponding Enlightenment notion which makes the individual autonomous. Care must be taken to separate these two notions of individualism, and I don't see a whole lot of that going on in the mainstream Right except in the area of sexuality.

Mark: I don't think "individualism" is bad and I'm not arguing against it. I have a lot of respect for the 'American virtues' of self-reliance, placing a high value on personal liberty, and so on.

Paul Johnson, in the book we're talking about, refers again and again to these principles in order to praise them. But Johnson is a maverick. Not many people (in the UK) would endorse the values of individualism or what might be called American enterprise as such.

My quote was selective because I wanted to draw attention to Puritan influences - which despite being trumped by the do-it-yourself society still, apparently, persist in the United States.

I wouldn't want to characterize anyone I don't know, but Jeff C. gave me the impression that he values co-operative inclinations and mutual assistance in human society above the competitive struggle.

Lydia McGrew: "Moreover, you may not have noticed, but I have in the past _rarely_ posted at this blog about economic issues. That restraint was _precisely_ because of my having both colleagues (or specifically a colleague) and commentators who are less pro-market than I am. ... I must say, however, that when my restraint on such subjects is met in this fashion, I am much inclined to wonder why I shouldn't say more."

To elaborate on Perry, Bozeman shows that Perry's "errand in the wilderness" thesis --that the Puritans were trying to setup a model Christian country for the world to emulate-- was forced artificially out of selective quotations in the 50's. The more straightforward read of what they said and wrote was that they were trying to emulate the primitive New Testament church, and they didn't care at all if anyone else followed their lead, nor likely would they think anyone else should.

On that view, this debate comes right back to the never-ending debate about whether or not Christian folk should have a political view that the early church was a political exemplar for a nation to follow.

Alex: Fine with your response, but you claim that "Not many people (in the UK) would endorse the values of individualism or what might be called American enterprise as such" is highly doubtful. The most problematic part, though not the only, is that I still don't know what you mean by "individualism." Can you explain what it is other than simply to imply that it is some way that the Americans exemplify"? Because I still don't know what you think it is.

Alex: I forgot to say, if this helps, that I don't see how do-it-yourself and "co-operative inclinations and mutual assistance" are mutually exclusive. Do-it-yourself does not mean do-it-alone, and has never implied that. Nor does do-it-yourself imply "competitive struggle." Do-it-yourself usually has been taken to mean do it if no one else already is. It doesn't imply you must or should do something others are already doing, unless there is a specific reason to do so. So that's why I ask what you mean by "individualism."

that "Not many people (in the UK) would endorse the values of individualism or what might be called American enterprise as such" is highly doubtful.

Mark, I dunno. I think there's a terrific amount of caricature and anti-Americanism in the UK and in Europe as well. (Like a good old-fashioned Anglophile, I do not automatically speak of England as Europe! :-)) Alex isn't, of course, agreeing with this but just pointing it out, and I think he may be right. I'll give you a very _mild_ example from an English popular-level novel: A young man in the navy is writing a letter home from Long Island, where he's stationed. He goes on at some length about the wonderful hospitality of the Long Islanders and attributes it to American history. He conjectures that American hospitality comes from the days on the frontier when, seeing dust in the distance, a homesteader would put the kettle on the fire to help the person or people going through the wilderness. But the novelist doesn't stop there. She has the young naval officer continue, dryly, "Of course the frontiersman would also have his gun in his hand when he saw the dust, and that's the _other_ part of the American character."

Now, again, that's mild. But it's basically that kind of Euro condescension, put by the novelist in the mouth of the character, against American individualism in the form of our allegedly being trigger-happy, loving guns too much, and so forth. Think of the condescending way that Europeans (and American leftists) use the term "cowboy" all the time.

I still recall being told by a taxi driver in Leuven how wonderful Barack Obama was and how he would correct the terrible "cowboy" Americanism of George W. Bush.

It's tiresome, but it is a very real phenomenon. There is a concomitantly large amount of misplaced pride in Euro-socialist programs as being superior to anything in America. Heaven knows, if one reads Wesley J. Smith's blog one knows this is nonsense, and one hopes never to be at the tender mercies of England's NHS, but that's not how many an Englishman sees it. Brutal reality may be changing some opinions there, but I don't know how many.

Or here's another story: I love the books by Helene Hanff, beginning with 84 Charing Cross Road, about her love for England and her eventually getting to go there. But there's no getting around it: Hanff was a New York Liberal--deep-dyed. When she finally went to England, she was being driven around London by an actress whose name I can't remember right now. The actress asked what else Hanff would like to see, and Hanff said (this was in approximately 1975), "I would like to see the London slums." The actress gently said, "I'm afraid, dear, that there aren't any."

!!!!!???????

And Hanff swallowed this hook, line, and sinker, and comments to the reader, "And that, along with England's national health care, tells you all you need to know about the differences between capitalism and socialism."

Where does one begin?

But there, again, you see that, "We're better than you American individualists" nonsense carried to its extreme.

So I think I really do know what Alex is describing--not endorsing, of course. Alex is a "friendly." :-)

Concerning the origins of American individualism, I would cite a recent article (5/2012) in the APSR (complete with regressions for the statistically inclined) that buttresses the argument that "conversionary Protestants" were just as important as Enlightenment ideas in paving the way for liberal democracy in America by fostering a greater separation of church and state, dispersing political power, promoting mass education, and invigorating civil society with mediating institutions. But therein lies the problem with the broadside against individualism because the Protestants (and classical liberals)--but, notably, not the Catholic Church--were the ones responsible for creating in America a robust civil society that honors both the individual and the community, particularly via civil associations. Like Tocqueville, the article notes:

"Because they do not have the ability to tax their members, nonstate religious groups had to instill volunteerism and charity in their congregants to survive. In the process of running religious organizations, ordinary people gained habits, skills, and networks that they could use for other types of social movements...Nonconformist religious groups also fought for the rights of organizations to function outside state control, partly as a way to defend themselves from discrimination and government interference."

And it is the modern state collectivism of people like Obama that is so dangerous not only to individual action but also to non-state collective action, which is why I emphasized Obama's omission of entitlements (which are more about "gimme, gimme" than "giving back"). If you want to stifle people's ability to volunteer, to practice charity, and to do things together, then have the federal government keep expanding the entitlement society.

The fact that some people fail to take advantage of the opportunities provided to them does not mean that those opportunities aren't provided by society.

I am saying that those structures exist because of social cooperation. It only takes one person to realize building public roads is a good idea, but it takes a lot of people to support public infrastructure projects.

Society and government are not the same. Society is larger, prior, and more fundamental: in a sense, society uses government as a tool to further its ends. But also, individuals are prior and more fundamental than government OR society as a whole.

What is important to remember in discussions about the relative roles of individuals and government, is that government is not an agent the same way individuals are agents. When government "does" something, it does it resting on the backs and hands of individuals, usually in 2 different ways: both by using resources first acquired by individuals and taxed from the individuals to become a governmental resource, and secondly by putting that resource in the hands of a delegated individual - a member of society - to use for a new purpose.

But it is NOT the case that at root, bottom, most basic level, individuals do and must rely on government to act: if a loner, rugged individualist goes off into an uninhabited forest, makes a bow and arrow, shoots a deer, uses the antlers for bone tools and the hide for clothes, he is not resting his creative work on social support. When a miner goes out into uncharted frontier, locates a likely ore deposit, digs a mine, and smelts down the ore to get the metal, he is not resting on government. ALL resources that are resources to government (or society more generally) became resources at root by the effort of individuals on some raw materials that were nobody's before some individual made it useful. It is always and necessarily the case that what exists in the raw state of nature is a useless bit of dross until an individual applies his energy to it, (at least to pick it up and bring it home, if nothing more), so it becomes of benefit to society through the prior developmental work of an individual.

Secondly, society itself is a kind of making, by individuals. That is to say, what we mean by society is nothing more than a mutual, cooperative way of living by individual men. Thus, what "society" does is done by individual men: when you describe their actions in the conglomerate, you call it a social action. But that description is a way of glossing over the fact that each separate act is an act of a man, a moral act that he is responsible for individually.

Obama is wrong to claim that the government is the prior cause, necessarily. It is wrong historically and wrong in principle. The fact that men are designed to act communally does not replace the principle that men act individually first - it is by individuals acting that government does what it does.

That said, Obama is right that the community as a source of benefits for society, including for entrepreneurs. He is wrong, again, in locating the foremost agent of that beneficial provider as government: society is more than government. When they point to schools: the first schools were not governmental, and the Christian churches still educate something like 20% of all kids, 30% of college kids (and would be more if government didn't interfere). When they point to roads: even in the 1700's and 1800's there were a number of private roads that paved the way for extending public roads. (no pun unintended). But throughout history, most public roads took over prior cart tracks made without governmental involvement. When they point to firemen, tons of our firemen are volunteers from the local community.

If we keep in mind that "society" consists of a huge number of interlocking communities, including families, neighborhoods, towns, churches, associations and clubs, cities, counties and states, we should be readily aware of how important the lower levels of that system to the higher levels: families provide the policemen and soldiers the government hires; schools (including private ones) train the scientists, administrators, and politicians that run federal government.

Hence, when an entrepreneur starts a business and hires 5 people, he is relying on that whole interlocking array, but he is feeding into that whole interlocking array as well: the salaries he pays these 5 workers maintain 5 families. The taxes his trucks pay in purchasing gasoline help build the roads. The sales taxes his business collects for the state helps pay for the state police. His real estate taxes help pay for the local public schools. The resources he buys from local fabricators make those businesses work, too. To point to his reliance on FEDERAL GOVERNMENT as if it were a special debt (over and above the debt of taxes he pays) is just ridiculous - properly he owes (and should owe) much more to local government than to federal government anyway.

Mark, I dunno. I think there's a terrific amount of caricature and anti-Americanism in the UK and in Europe as well.

I responded to a vague statement without being specific. Its almost disheartening to argue about something so vacuous that no one is willing to describe it. But here goes anyway. I am well-aware of anti-Americanism and caricature, but I wasn't referring to that. I was speaking of those wise Brits (and others) who could express themselves without caricature, and give a fair appraisal. Here was the statement:

Not many people (in the UK) would endorse the values of individualism or what might be called American enterprise as such.

And here is the background as I see it:

1) Individualism has no definite meaning other than "some thing or things that the Americans do" unless someone wants to take a shot at it at the tail end of this discussion. It certainly hasn't come out yet.

2) The very idea (whatever Alex believes) that resentment is ipso facto evidence that it is deserved is as dumb an idea as that women justify misogyny, rapists justify rape, or the bullied justify bullies.

3) The fact that the appeal to British public opinion assumes it is rational on the point of anti-Americanism. It isn't. Tony Blair called it "madness" though "anti-Americanism that "sometimes passes for its political discourse." He's right. He isn't alone.

And has the New World/Old World, new money/old money, powerful/formerly powerful, and Roman/Greek type of classic resentments, hatreds, and intrigue really gone down the memory hole? Do we really not see anymore that that age old story of human nature is a part of this? Really? Are we just supposed to say "oh well, everybody thinks that so there must be a good bit of truth to it"? What if there isn't any? Is it just too tiring now to oppose public opinion polls?

4) Anti-Americanism in Europe isn't even necessarily honest (itself arguably a part of #3 since Europeans have traditionally been seen by Americans as cynical and corrupt). They may posture that they dispise various things we do due to social acceptance and privately say they approve. VDH has written extensively on his personal experience with this. He also thinks anti-Americanism isn't rational, analogizes European thought in terms of spoiled teenager (the Europeans can't even defend themselves), and thinks only the rise of China might shake Europe out of its self-serving distortions by an actual threat to what they care about.

So I got Alex's point as you describe it well enough, but I can't see the kernel of truth I could accept of it is actually present as such. If it is only a statement about public opinion, and we can't describe what anti-Americanism really is, couldn't it be stated this way: "British public opinion is against the US because of anti-Americanism"? Isn't that a tautology? Nothing to object to, but meaningless and uninformative. It's just piling vacuity on vacuity.

So I get your point Lydia, and I'm sure Alex is a great guy and it's nothing personal, but I'm still not happy with the specific statement I objected to. BTW, where are all the folks quoting Tocqueville's "tyranny of the majority" passages when you really need them?

I've been asked (by Mark) what I mean by 'American individualism'. I believe the salient characteristic of American individualism is a strong desire, consistent with the security and defence of the nation, to keep government interference with personal liberty at a minimum. To elaborate further brings in the 'American virtues' of self-reliance etc., which I mentioned before. Perhaps some will still say this is too vague or it's all a myth. Well, it's the best I can do in a blog comment.

At the heart of what Lydia has been arguing, as I understand it, is the moral judgment that people ought to take personal responsibility for many goods and services that the federal government now seeks to provide or inflict on everyone regardless. Her view, if it's not vulgar to put it this way, is 'all-American' and what I would expect from a well-educated social conservative. But it's a point of view that doesn't resonate much within the 'thinking classes' of the British Isles.

Over here, we have been conditioned to the opposite effect: people expect the government to behave like a nursemaid and complain when it doesn't.

When I speak of anti-American sentiment in Europe, of course I'm giving my opinion about a climate of opinion. Anecdotal evidence isn't good enough for a dissertation, but I'm not writing a dissertation about anti-Americanism. If you pay attention to the British media and listen to the conversations of people in the workplace etc., you will encounter what I have alleged often enough. For instance: A report in yesterday's Guardian about the shootings in a Denver cinema has this comment, "The progress of mass death in modern America has a tendency to follow the same basic script: an unhinged person gains easy access to firearms and the consequences are devastating." The tendentious attitude being expressed (concerning among other things, an American constitutional right) isn't hard to detect.

Society and government are not the same. Society is larger, prior, and more fundamental: in a sense, society uses government as a tool to further its ends. But also, individuals are prior and more fundamental than government OR society as a whole.

Aristotle refuted this over 2,000 years ago. Individuals can only function as individuals because they live within society. If you grew up alone in a jungle with almost no human contact you would probably lack the ability to think coherently, speak, or live as anything other than an animal. It is society that made you a person. You owe your very existence as a person to society.

became resources at root by the effort of individuals on some raw materials that were nobody's before some individual made it useful. It is always and necessarily the case that what exists in the raw state of nature is a useless bit of dross until an individual applies his energy to it, (at least to pick it up and bring it home, if nothing more), so it becomes of benefit to society through the prior developmental work of an individual.

If we are talking about modern businesses then we have to acknowledge that government infrastructure plays a central role. It is impossible to have modern commerce without having a government to enforce contracts, public infrastructure, and so on. There may be some narrow exceptions to this rule, but they are rare.

To point to his reliance on FEDERAL GOVERNMENT as if it were a special debt (over and above the debt of taxes he pays) is just ridiculous - properly he owes (and should owe) much more to local government than to federal government anyway.

I think he owes society in general, not the federal government. The federal government is the instrument through which he can pay that debt.

The federal government is the instrument through which he can pay that debt.

And that's where you are so wrong, Orly. But since you have characterized yourself expressly as a socialist (I appreciate the honesty, I genuinely do, would that all socialists were as clear), I think we understand where that is coming from.

I've been asked (by Mark) what I mean by 'American individualism'. I believe the salient characteristic of American individualism is a strong desire, consistent with the security and defence of the nation, to keep government interference with personal liberty at a minimum. To elaborate further brings in the 'American virtues' of self-reliance etc., which I mentioned before. Perhaps some will still say this is too vague or it's all a myth. Well, it's the best I can do in a blog comment.

I wasn't really asking you, but others who were denouncing the idea without describing why. I don't regard your description as vague. It could only be so specific. I wasn't asking for much, but I wasn't getting anything from the loudest ones, not that this is surprising at all.

When I speak of anti-American sentiment in Europe, of course I'm giving my opinion about a climate of opinion. Anecdotal evidence isn't good enough for a dissertation, but I'm not writing a dissertation about anti-Americanism. If you pay attention to the British media and listen to the conversations of people in the workplace etc., you will encounter what I have alleged often enough. For instance: A report in yesterday's Guardian about the shootings in a Denver cinema has this comment, "The progress of mass death in modern America has a tendency to follow the same basic script: an unhinged person gains easy access to firearms and the consequences are devastating." The tendentious attitude being expressed (concerning among other things, an American constitutional right) isn't hard to detect.

But ALex, didn't I make it perfectly clear in my response above that my problem with your statement was that vague references to European anti-Americanism and it's view on "individualism or what might be called American enterprise" isn't that European anti-Americanism doesn't exist or even that it isn't prevalent. I know it does as much as anyone I think. My point was that Europeans of this view don't know what the Hell they are talking about. Many Europeans will plainly tell you this of their fellow Europeans as well. The whole point revolves around the fact that your statement was entirely uncritical, and in light of what I said, pointless because of the nature of the phenomenon if what I and others have said about it has any truth at all. If we're not going to evaluate to degree to which (if any) something has some correspondance to the truth or not, what is the point of discussing it at all? If it was just a pure description with no real point, such as in the statement "the sky is blue" or "and then the war came" then I have no reason to argue with it, though if that is so I can only wonder why it was brought up at all.

The whole point revolves around the fact that your statement was entirely uncritical, and in light of what I said, pointless because of the nature of the phenomenon if what I and others have said about it has any truth at all.

Okay, Mark, at this point I really think you're picking on Alex. Far from being uncritical, he was commenting on an attitude that, as far as I can tell, he doesn't share. I'm perfectly happy to say both that most Europeans who criticize American individualism don't know what they are talking about clearly and also that there is a good phenomenon that we could call "American individualism" that we should strive to preserve. Indeed, a big problem with American leftists like our President is precisely that they have a somewhat Euro-style collectivist mindset and hence that they are anti-American. No doubt they would like to gain the approval of their confreres over the pond by turning America as much as possible into a Euro-style soft-socialist state, all in the name of opposing the supposed evils of individualism.

In any event, please stop giving Alex a hard time. I thought I'd asked that already, but maybe I wasn't explicit enough.

Yes, exactly Lydia. And I wasn't intending to pick on anyone, I was just confused about what was said, and also thought it useful to discuss the phenomenon of European anti-Americanism. I find the more informed British opinion (those that actually know something about us) very incisive, though no doubt in part because it is agreeable to me. For example, there was a BBC journalist not too long ago that did a series on America for the BBC and was speechless and brought to tears during an Air Force flyover at a high school football game in Texas. I believe he said that you couldn't see that type of loyalty and patriotism displayed publicly in Britain anymore.

One of the things I think that is missing in the whole debate of what Obama said is that the comments from the Liberal side don't recognize, and most of the Conservative critics aren't verbal enough about, is the vast changes in technology and the power of the citizens to do things on their own now. We all know government has a role in doing some things that can't be done by individuals. But the power of individuals to do things by themselves has multiplied greatly.

For example, there was a time in the then remote parts of the country when the government simply was the US Postal Service. The government's presence was the USPS presence, and the lack of USPS in a given area meant that it was ungoverned in any meaningful way. Tocqueville travelled around the country (to the actually small extent that he did) by hopping rides payed for by tax dollars of US citizens on government postal vehicles. Now we have a vast army of efficient carriers of product and people crossing the country and the globe. I can step outside at night and look up in the sky on some nights and see the lights of as many as 10-12 jets in a line descending into LAX like taxis. It was the science fiction of past generations.

But with the security now provided by the government (in government's proper role by combination of national, state, and local agencies) and the prosperity present today free citizens can easily do what only the government once did. And the power of individuals to form associations and fund effective private enterprises is amazing today, and nothing like it was even a few decades ago. But what the government once did it wants to continue to do regardless of whether it is needed or not. Power is hard for bureaucrats to give up, but it is up to the citizens now to take back control of what they can now do far better than the government, and for the government to stop regulating things for individuals and communities when it is no longer necessary or efficient for it to do so.

This story of advancing technical innovation and the change it has had in society is a story waiting to be told eloquently by a Conservative candidate and would educational. People tend to lose their perspective and take things for granted devoid of context and lacking some important nuance. A good leader would do this and inspire us. Instead, we have a religious debate about the role of government as if the relative power between individuals and states were unchanged in the last 100 years.

The federal government is the instrument through which he can pay that debt.

The federal government is not "the" instrument but one instrument through which one can pay that debt, and participating in its Ponzi schemes, unlike serving in the military, is a way of piling up more debt to society rather than paying it back.

It may be true that few Europeans who express anti-American opinions could define "American individualism" to Mark's satisfaction. However, in the very essence of these opinions there is ignorance and sometimes irrational hostility. Why should this be the case? Well, the answer must be very complicated, but here's a couple of reasons. Envy of American economic success and a supercilious attitude toward American culture have something to do with it. To put this as tersely as I can, we look down on you.

Mark praises a BBC journalist, yet that organization is noted for its anti-American bias by many fair-minded observers. For example: Tony Blair said in public that the BBC coverage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster was "full of hate for the U.S." (Channel 4 is probably the most vehement critic of the United States on British television.)

A few years ago the BBC Washington correspondent Justin Webb, described as an Americanophile and speaking about his employer, said that the BBC is extremely biased against America and that it deserves “no moral weight". Let's just say his censure of the BBC not receive a sympathetic hearing from the rest of the British media.

Alex, we're talking past each other when we both quote Tony Blair for the same purpose. I'm not sure why, but let's just drop it. We appear to have no argument so let's leading others to believe that we do by continuing it. In a strange twist to the art of debating, we're just going to have to agree to agree, and move on. :)

I will add that even countries that are often suggested as models of free market utopia are deeply entwined with government interference and regulation.

Oh absolutely. But step2, Singapore? Really? Much of the American economy is still merely moving money around between what Galbraith called the iron triangles: big government, big labor, and big business.

Farm subsidies, business subsidies, education subsidies, home ownership subsidies, and on and on. And moving money around isn't real economic activity. It is simply redistribution, followed by a bubble, followed by a pop, followed by wailing and gnashing of teeth, and then a repetition of a slightly different type.

But what of these examples? It doesn't settle anything. Is that the way an economy and society should work, and is it likely to continue in a nation likely to actually reform it in some significant way? Walter Russel Mead calls the old model the "Blue Model" and writes eloquently about its failure, and possible aftermath. But I've seen it first hand in the Rust Belt economies, farming, big business, and academia so I didn't need his telling of it, but I'm just saying you could look to him if you don't know of this understanding.

"Obama is wrong to claim that the government is the prior cause, necessarily"

You, I think, under-emphasize the State, but I guess that accords more with modern Church. The medievals would have put it differently.

Per Aristotle, the Constitution of the City, written as well as unwritten, is the formal cause of the City. Thus the State enters the City at a very fundamental level. Also, the State is the efficient cause of the City.

"each separate act is an act of a man, a moral act that he is responsible for individually"
That is Misean methodological individualism but is it true?. What about the hangman that carries out the death sentence?. If the person is innocently executed, who has murdered him?.
The hangman, the judge or the State?.

"individuals are prior and more fundamental than government OR society as a whole. "
Again in accord with the modern Church but in tension with Aristotle or the medievals.
For Dante, the Empire was divine and divine with Papacy. They had a High Conception of State as an Agent for Justice and a curb on Individuals as to keep them in straight and narrow.
The people cry out for Justice and no society could exist without this hope. And the State is fundamental here. Private Justice is absurd. The Judge must sit over the Individuals.

A City, along with its conception of Justice (i,e, its constitution) is an instantiation, necessarily
approximate of Natural Law. The State, the efficient cause of the City, is absolute to the pursuit and realization of Justice and is indispensable to the people. The Americans with a mythology of the frontier miss out the High Conception of the State. It is beyond economics.

Tony,
The philosophers have vainly tried to derive the political from the pre-political.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says:
The question of the origin of civil power and its concentration in this or that subject is like the origin of society itself, a topic of debate. Catholic philosophy is agreed that it is conferred by Nature's Lawgiver directly upon the social depositary thereof, as parental supremacy is upon the father of a family. But the determination of the depositary is another matter. The doctrine of Francisco Suárez makes the community itself the depositary, immediately and naturally consequent upon its establishment of civil society, to be disposed of then by their consent, overt or tacit, at once or by degrees, according as they determine for themselves a form of government. This is the only true philosophical sense of the dictum that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed". The Taparelli school makes the primitive determinant out of an existing prior right of another character, which passes naturally into this power. Primitively this is parental supremacy grown to patriarchal dimensions and resulting at the last in supreme civil power. Secondarily, it may arise from other rights, showing natural aptitude preferentially in one subject or another, as that of feudal ownership of the territory of the community, capacity to extricate order out of chaos in moments of civic confusion, military ability and success in case ofjust conquest, and, finally, in remote instances by the consent of the governed.

And I neglected to say that the efficient cause was the original legislator or statesman who founded the state.

But Gian, I don't see how any of this or the Catholic theology you've cited refutes what Tony has said that you're objecting to. There is some circularity among the definitions, and it can't be otherwise. The state can't exist without citizens, and a citizen can't exist without a state.

At the end of the day it comes down to competing political philosophies of those like Obama who prefer a paternal liberal state and those who see a democratic republic of free citizens. These competing visions have always been with us. You won't find Aristotle endorsing the idea of Plato's philosopher kings. It's two competing visions of how a state should be. The Murray quote above and many of the comments are merely pointing out that the US has been one form since the beginning and Obama is trying to change us from one to another without our consent. That is the point.

I think Gian's ideas of the State as this primary Entity with a capital E, the repository of Justice (with a capital J), his idea that "the Empire is divine," that the State is prior to individuals, and that people are not responsible individually for their acts, are plain scary. I couldn't care less if those ideas are Medieval, if they are Dantean, if they are more in line with Old-time Catholicism, or anything else. They are profoundly wrong-headed. I'm glad that the United States was founded on a better set of ideas. If this be Modernism, make the most of it.

Lydia,
Not State but City or Nation in modern language.
After all, the individual is called upon to sacrifice even his life for the Nation, as JF Kennedy said, Ask not what the Nation can do for you but what you can do for the Nation.
Nothing scary. Remove the capitals if scaring.

Mark,
The point is that the political can not be reduced to the pre-political. A technical point, perhaps, in political philosophy, but I happen to think significant as a divider between Liberal (including American 'conservatives') and pre-Liberal thought.

If the political is reducible to the pre-political (as in the philosophies of Hobbes, Locke or early Nozick), then man may contrive a better alternative
to organize society and utopianism is not barren.

If the political is reducible to the pre-political (as in the philosophies of Hobbes, Locke or early Nozick), then man may contrive a better alternative to organize society and utopianism is not barren.

No, actually, that doesn't follow. I understand why you would think it follows, but it doesn't. Tony would probably do a better and more patient job than I would explaining why. Briefly, utopianism has to do with tearing down, wholesale destruction, and building up from scratch. It is always extremely unwise, not to say stupid, to set out deliberately to do this, despite the fact that real, concrete, individuals people are the only and basic constituents of the polis. It doesn't follow from that that wholesale destruction is justified, nor does it follow that any individual person or any group has the wisdom for utopia-building.

Per Aristotle, the Constitution of the City, written as well as unwritten, is the formal cause of the City. Thus the State enters the City at a very fundamental level. Also, the State is the efficient cause of the City.

Gian, you mistake my point in indentifying that constitution is the formal cause of the city. When the City is a real city in the fullest, most proper sense, it is a polity as well as a complex of smaller-than-political communities. In order for it to BE a polity full and complete, it must not only have a political life, but have a unifying principle which organizes that political life at the highest level. That organizing principle is the constitution (written or unwritten - or, actually the unwritten part [ which all polities have] and the written part if it has a written part). The government is the express organ by which the political aspect of the city is made active, but the government is not the polity as such, it is only a peartial expression of it - the top-end agent (the people themselves are also part of how the polity expresses its political organization, but below the top-end activity).

But in order to have a polity, in order to have a constitutional integration, it is necessary to have a society, with multiple layers of communities to be organized. And in order to have these communities, it is necessary to have individuals who constitute them and make them real, active aspects of society. Not only do these communities make up the fabric of the polity, (and so are in some sense the material cause as the stuff which the constitution organizes), but also these communities are the prior cause of the unwritten part of the constitution itself: the language in which all the members of the society think and speak and express their political ends, the customs under which they participate in being not-as-such-political communities, and the mutual, shared, communal story that enables them to move from a pre-political set of communities into a political unity: things like "rule of law" and "majority vote wins" (instead of "rule of the strongest", or in other times and places "the son of the king", or other countries "the oldest male of the line of the FIRST CHILD of the king"). Without a strongly grounded communal sense of accepting the choice of the majority, the 13 colonies could not have agreed to form an express union, they would have perforce remained 13 separate polities - they would have said "nuts to you 9 colonies, we don't like each and every rule you want, so we will go our own way."

A group, whether of individuals or smaller groups, cannot integrate into one ordered entity, without some kind of shared understanding of what that unity is about. Most polities came about with both a shared language and a shared bloodline, ancestry. But even without a common blood, the MUST have a unified language and a shared notion of "what makes us one entity". The customs and language and shared history that these individuals have in common are essentially necessary for the coming-to-be of the organized, integrated whole to be explicit as a polity. Therefore, the lower-level entities, the individuals and smaller groups, in whom live the language and the customs, are essentially prior in time to the state as a political reality.

The constitution of the state qua organized political entity is the last, ultimate step in the coalescing of a polity full and complete, and is therefore the formal cause of the polity being a true polity, but the pre-requisites to such an organizational unity being real are the language and customs of prior beings, individuals and smaller groups.

"individuals are prior and more fundamental than government OR society as a whole. "
Again in accord with the modern Church but in tension with Aristotle or the medievals.
For Dante, the Empire was divine and divine with Papacy. They had a High Conception of State as an Agent for Justice and a curb on Individuals as to keep them in straight and narrow.

Look, you are just talking about something different. For Aristotle, in an act of intelligence, the end or purpose is the first thing, then the means chosen comes next - in the order of intention. In the order of execution, the intelligent agent acts first to execute the preliminary steps and then acts through the means to achieve the end. Thus in the order of actual being, the intermediate things are real before the end is achieved and becomes real.

To the extent the state is the result of an act of intelligence, the same would be true: the end is first in intention, and the means is first in real being. From God's angle, intending that man live in society to be complete, the end is the state full and real. In the order of operation, the Divine agent acts first to produce "a people" capable of ordering themselves according to a principle of unity, and then an actual constitutional integration under such an ordering principle. Thus in the order of reality, the people and their pre-political customs are real before the state is real. The lower level things are prior in the order of coming-to-be, the final end is prior in the order of intention.

The doctrine of Francisco Suárez makes the community itself the depositary, immediately and naturally consequent upon its establishment of civil society, to be disposed of then by their consent, overt or tacit, at once or by degrees, according as they determine for themselves a form of government.

Focus for just a moment on that last phrase: "determine for themselves a form of government". It is impossible for a people to be in the condition of having a true government unless, prior (in time) to that state of affairs, they were already a people capable of the sort of unity that being governed implies: "a people". This is why Suarez, and St. Thomas in "on Kingship" talks of a people determining their form of government. Whether they do it all at once or by degrees, they do it in virtue of already being ready to be a unified "they". THEY are capable of acting to form a government because they have the necessary pre-conditions of language, customs, and a sense of "we're all together on this". Suarez talks of "the community itself" being the depositary, which means that in his view the community pre-exists the state in the order of reality. You cannot have "the community itself" without the pre-conditions that implies: shared customs, unified language, and at least some history together.

And the State is fundamental here. Private Justice is absurd. The Judge must sit over the Individuals.

Again, you mistake the classical (at least, Aristotelian and Thomistic) understanding of reality. The state is a real thing, but it is real in a different sense than is the individual human being. A person is a substance, a subsistence that is real absolutely, simply, without qualification. Just as accidents like "white" and "hot" and "heavy" must be real by being attributes of some substantial being, aspects of a thing that is a thing simply, all on its own, and so accidents are "being" in a qualified sense, so also the state is a qualified sort of "being". A state is a being derivatively through the substantial being of the members that make it up. The individual humans will be here eternally - either in heaven or hell - but the state will not. The state's reality is a derivative reality, through that of its humans and their social nature. (It may also be said to exist derivatively resting on their intentions, their designs and decisions: the modern state of Israel came to be through the intentional choice of a large group of persons who chose to cease to be members of the states of Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, etc, and to coalesce their political asset around a new object. But I won't insist on this.)

The consequence is that the common goods that are the ends of the state are goods for the state as a whole by being participated in by individual men. You cannot have Justice, the great common good, to be an actual real good being enjoyed unless there are INDIVIDUALS who are participating in it as an actual, real, participation themselves. If state A (for example) achieve "justice" by punishing a neighbor state B of a grave international crime, but state A only achieves this by a complete annihilation of all its people (think MAD), then there are no individuals left to be participants of Justice, and Justice isn't a common good in act, it remains only a common good in intention. For the good of a state to be actual, in the flesh real, it must be participated in by flesh and blood real human beings. The common good is in-actuality real derivatively by being participated in by people, i.e. by those beings (simply) who are real simply, not qualifiedly.

It should be clear from this that I reject the Lockean and von Misean theory of individuals being the only real things with "the state" being a mere legal fiction. The state is real, and man is ordered to social unity. But man is real in a higher, more absolute sense than the state is real. And so the good is real in a different sense being in man compared to being real in the state. It is not that the only type of justice is that individual justice that resides between one man and another in (usually economic) exchange, there is a type of Justice higher than that. But the higher Justice is, also, real by resting on real human beings who participate in it either directly or indirectly.

[I think that Bellarmine's political essays were perfectly consistent with the Thomistic preliminaries, by the way, and although I have limited knowledge of Suarez's material, I suspect that Suarez was close but missed a bit here and there.]

Tony,
I admire your fine remarks. May I quibble
"move from a pre-political set of communities into a political unity"

I think there is always a political unity and never a pre-political anything.
1) Historically, we have no record of anything pre-political.
2) Observationally, even the tribal bands show the essential city-ness-a common moral code and procedures for justice.

Lydia,
"utopianism has to do with tearing down, wholesale destruction, and building up from scratch."

But we do see tearing down and wholesale destruction. Social indicators are clear enough.
And with no little thanks to the utopianism of the Right.

While the utopianism of the Left has been intellectually discredited, that of the Right is still fighting. What it seeks is to rebuild all society on the ground of absolute private property. This is a subtle error, this denial of the City and the mystical doctrine of Universal Destination of Goods, but no less potent in the havoc it has and can wreak.

Mark,
The point is that the political can not be reduced to the pre-political. A technical point, perhaps, in political philosophy, but I happen to think significant as a divider between Liberal (including American 'conservatives') and pre-Liberal thought.

If the political is reducible to the pre-political (as in the philosophies of Hobbes, Locke or early Nozick), then man may contrive a better alternative to organize society and utopianism is not barren.

Gian, sorry I didn't see this earlier. I agree that the political can't be reduced to the political, but I still forcefully reject that the state has any primacy of the sort that Obama is expressing.

I'm with Tony on that, but he waffled a bit in beginning with the idea that a nation might be unified by adherence to a particular sort of laws, but then later seemed to imply that much more might be necessary.

I'll be scorned by all sides for saying this, but Aristotle's idea of the essentially political man that has come down to us through the Greco-Roman tradition held sway since his time, and it has been abandoned by many over the last few centuries and replaced with culture: shared blood, language, land, race, etc., the latter which is a repudiation of the prior view supported strongly by psuedo-science that reached its zenith in the 18th century. Hannaford's Race: The History of an Idea in the West traces the history of the Aristotelian view in the course of it and has been called a tour-de-force of intellectual history, and it is that. Like I said, now politics is seen as ethereal, and "culture" as more firm and real to many today, but yet this isn't the classic view and there are reasons for it. Hannaford's book is one of the most thought provoking books I've ever read, and should not be ignored by anyone.

So I think you may be hinting at something important, but I would still forcefully reject Obama's characterization of the primacy of the state. I think Aristotle got the four causes of it right, but I still see the individual as logically prior and the state parasitic on him, and I don't see anything in Aristotle that would contradict that.

Gian, talk to _me_: There is _no_ utopianism that _I_ share to which Obama's evil collectivist remarks are a "good corrective." (That's what this thread goes back to.) I'm sorry, but you are just vague. Moreover, we strongly disagree that you (and Obama) are warning us about something that is real and that we need to be warned about. There is no "Right utopianism" based on trying to emphasize too much that the pre-political is what makes up the political which is harming this country, which is "too individualistic," and which Obama's "you didn't build that comment" could help to counteract. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The sort of evil selfishness that Obama's own party most promotes, the selfishness that involves murdering the weak and helpless, is all-too-cozily comfortable with the anti-free market collectivism the leftists preach. This is a paradox that socialistically inclined Catholics always stumble over, but actually, it's only a paradox to them. Mainstream conservatives understand pretty well, if only tacitly. Some of us understand it more explicitly. The anarcho-tyranny of the murderous pro-death, anti-individualistic left fits together pretty well. It makes an efficient killing machine both for the unborn and for the economic well-being of the country and for the small businessman. It is a hatred of nature, of man, and of the good. It loves to turn things upside-down and call good evil. The soft-socialist Catholic and paleo "right," so misguidedly worried about Evil American Individualism, *even in the form of justified pride for starting a business*, simply gives it aid and comfort. Sometimes with references to Dante and other ancient authors. More's the pity.

And I'm being gentle in my way of putting this to you, believe it or not.

Moreover: The only people I've ever had any contact with who are interested in a "Utopia of absolute private property" are the most extreme libertarians, verging on or over the line of anarchists. These represent only the tiniest minority in the United States and are in no way, shape, or form representative of mainstream conservatism. The idea that absolutist anarcho-libertarianism forms some sort of real threat of utopianism "on the right" that is influencing the course of this country and needs to be addressed would definitely be out of touch with reality.

And short of that, no, actually, there isn't such a utopianism of "absolute private property" floating about on the right and in need of a corrective.

'there isn't such a utopianism of "absolute private property" floating about on the right and in need of a corrective.'

So the whole neocon lauding of and push toward global corporate capitalism isn't to any degree utopian? Seems to me that lefties aren't the only ones who hold exclusive rights to immanentizing the eschaton.

Probably, NM, I would think that some aspects of what you would call "global corporate capitalism" are good and that some are bad. Either way, I highly doubt that I would agree with you and Gian that this has something to do with a "utopianism that seeks to rebuild all of society on the ground of absolute private property" coming from "the right."

So the whole neocon lauding of and push toward global corporate capitalism isn't to any degree utopian? Seems to me that lefties aren't the only ones who hold exclusive rights to immanentizing the eschaton.

People who are at least fellow travelers with the neocons tend to be in favor of IP maximalism which is absolutely incendiary to actual physical property rights. I bet you would also find that most neocons oppose Kelo mainly on purely utilitarian grounds, not moral.

And is opposition to the Kelo decision itself now supposed to mean that one is a private property absolutist trying to build utopia and in need of chiding from Barack Obama on the dangers of individualism? Oy vey.

And is opposition to the Kelo decision itself now supposed to mean that one is a private property absolutist trying to build utopia and in need of chiding from Barack Obama on the dangers of individualism?

I think Kelo, like civil asset forfeiture, is a window into the true mind of someone talking about politics. It reveals so much about their worldview no matter what they claim. Kelo legalized armed robbery by politically-connected land developers who want to make to "make better use" of your land than you are. Likewise, civil asset forfeiture is literally nothing more than the legalization of armed robbery by the police since it happens outside of due process of law.

I bet you would also find that most neocons oppose Kelo mainly on purely utilitarian grounds, not moral.

Since utilitarianism is a moral system, I have no idea what you think your point is. Also, Kelo was wrongly decided and civil asset forfeiture is appropriate only for the ringleaders of organized crime, not for anyone else. If you decide to label me a neocon or a property rights absolutist I may die from laughter.

Since utilitarianism is a moral system, I have no idea what you think your point is.

It is only a moral system if you take it as a given that someone should intrinsically care about the greatest good for the most people is. Utilitarianism is rather poor at it explaining why that is intrinsically binding on someone. Depending on the arguments about the metaphysical and utilitarianism, the very concept of binding morality becomes laughable.

civil asset forfeiture is appropriate only for the ringleaders of organized crime, not for anyone else

So you believe that the government should be able to accuse someone of being a crime kingpin and asset strip them prior to mounting a defense in court. Lovely. An awful lot like how Obama claims the legal right to designate an American as too big of a terrorist to warrant a trial and take them out with a drone.

It is only a moral system if you take it as a given that someone should intrinsically care about the greatest good for the most people is.

You have a moral system that promotes the least good for the most people? How does that differ from evil?

So you believe that the government should be able to accuse someone of being a crime kingpin and asset strip them prior to mounting a defense in court. Lovely.

If libertarianism is supposed to be a moral system, you could be a little less eager to defend mafia bosses and Bernie Madoff. I also didn't suppose that forfeiture is prior to a court defense.

An awful lot like how Obama claims the legal right to designate an American as too big of a terrorist to warrant a trial and take them out with a drone.

In case you haven't noticed, as bad as drone strikes are (especially when collateral damage is by default justified), they are also a trillion times more efficient at killing open traitors than declaring war on a country that is unable or refuses to apprehend them. When you can convince your righteous Tea Party politicians to denounce these strikes, I'll treat this like a real concern and not a distraction.

Gian, the Greeks distinguished themselves (civilized) from their neighbors (barbarians) on the basis of the polity: the barbarians had tribal systems that were not polities, they did not arise to the level of coherent integration of many communities under law, they were pre-political. Or, at least, the Greeks said they were not political.

Furthermore, wherever we locate the beginning of polities, it was later than Adam and Eve's first society. No matter what, there must have been a time when the first polity came to be, and before that there was a social structure that was pre-political.

We have, in our own times, (or just before) witnessed the coming-to-be of some brand new political entities: modern Israel, for example.

Be that as it may, I suppose that maybe I erred in stressing the _temporal_ preliminary condition as pre-requisite to the political state. What I insist on is the LOGICAL pre-requisite: a society, a language, a culture, a shared history, and a common view of what a state should be like. It isn't that these have to exist in time much before the state exists, it is that these are the necessary logical conditions for a political constitution to come into being. Thus, society (and its components) is logically prior to the state.

So, even though I reject the Hobbesian hypothesis of a "state of nature" as the actual condition of some (settled but unsocial) region, it does not follow that one need reject pre-political social reality to agree with Christian political theory.

Tony,
Arguably, Adam and Eve were created as monarchs. After all, monarchy is paternal in character and is supposed to have emerged from the primordial patriarchy.

I agree that the State can not be logical prior to the coherently structured society. But the point in contention is whether the individual is logically prior to the society organized as a City or not. How do we understand Aristotle's 'The City is prior to the individual or the family'?

Can the idea that City is as irreducible as the Individual be maintained? After all, heaven is also supposed to be a city.

Lydia,
I do think that the utopian sentiments are widespread among the Right, though not in the full idealogical rigor.For instance, a great many people might be offended to be told that their property rights exist only within the context of the State of USA and thus are not prior to the State of USA.

But this is a very ordinary fact of life dressed up in fancy language. All property titles are rendered moot if a State is conquered or otherwise dissolved.
Even the nature of property rights depend upon the polity. Nomadic polities do not grant property rights in land.

So the Right utopian closes his mind against most ordinary facts of life and pretends that his property rights exist in some state of nature. The Economists derive whole theories of production and distribution out of this neglect of political context of property rights including all of libertarianism.

Gian, how important really to current policy is the question of how or whether property rights could be acquired or maintained in a "Wild West" type of situation? For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure you and I disagree on that point. In the past here at W4 Tony has had some things to say about that concerning a person's clearing a piece of land and acquiring rights over it without someone's "granting" them. I'm pretty sure I agreed with what he said there.

But I see _zero_ utopia-building that is right now arising from my position on that. Zero. I don't see any desire to destroy a bunch of things in order to build utopia based on the notion that it is possible to acquire property rights in a state of nature. I don't see anything that Barack Obama is telling us that is a corrective of such a utopia building urge. I don't even, for that matter, see any beneficial policies that people want to enact that are being resisted _because_ some people on the right believe that it is possible to acquire property rights in a state of nature.

I would say that there may be _foolish_ policies that people on the right resist because of a stronger sense of property rights than that possessed on the left. But a) good for us on the right, I hope we keep resisting the foolish policies, and b) these have only a fairly tenuous connection to theories about property rights in a state of nature and _no_ connection to an attempt to build utopia in the here and now.

You have a moral system that promotes the least good for the most people? How does that differ from evil?

No, I said that utilitarianism quite stupidly just assumes that everyone values the greatest good for the most people. Therefore it implicitly has no authority in the eyes of someone who does not. Since such people are often likely to enter the halls of power, that might be worth reconsidering.

I also didn't suppose that forfeiture is prior to a court defense.

Civil asset forfeiture is pre-trial forfeiture. They claim your property "committed a crime" and sue the property. This is how we arrive at such ridiculous cases as "United States vs $170,000 in cash." The very point of civil asset forfeiture is to asset strip alleged criminals before they go to trial so they cannot use their alleged criminal funds to mount a powerful legal defense.

Yes, you can get the assets back if you can prove they weren't used by a criminal. Funny part is that it's hard to get your day in court when you've been asset stripped...

Civil asset forfeiture is actually used very commonly across the country now, and in fact some police forces and district attorney offices are heavily funded by the practice. The funds often end up in their hands, not the jurisdiction's treasury to be only disbursed by the county elected government or state legislature.

In case you haven't noticed, as bad as drone strikes are (especially when collateral damage is by default justified), they are also a trillion times more efficient at killing open traitors than declaring war on a country that is unable or refuses to apprehend them.

Please use a little imagination here. First of all, if the US were to ask for permission to get Al-Awlaki out of Yemen, the Yemeni government would likely have been enthusiastic since he was also waging war on them. Second, if the US government responds to being denied by simply kidnapping the terrorist and dragging him kicking and screaming back to our soil, you're unlikely to hear many complaints except the usual song and dance about American imperialist attitudes (and 9 out of 10 third worlders agree, CIA kidnappings like totally rock compared to drone strikes)

When you can convince your righteous Tea Party politicians to denounce these strikes, I'll treat this like a real concern and not a distraction.

Since you've tried to bind me to whatever they're doing, I take it you're willing to be similarly bound to everything Obama, Reid and Pelosi do or don't do. After all, you take it as a given that I am Tea Partier, therefore in the spirit of ignorance and collective judgment and flimsy associations, I mark thee an Obama/Reid/Pelosi diehard...

But this is a very ordinary fact of life dressed up in fancy language. All property titles are rendered moot if a State is conquered or otherwise dissolved.
Even the nature of property rights depend upon the polity. Nomadic polities do not grant property rights in land.

While I get what you're saying, property rights are rarely dissolved as a consequence of conquest because doing that would make the conquest substantially more difficult to maintain. Our own experiences in Iraq are actually an example of the folly of a conqueror attempting to wholesale reorganize a polity rather than just subordinating it (the traditional approach).

Where you are going wrong, I think, is in not recognizing that these "rightist utopians" believe that the moral claim exists prior to the state and may practically exist by virtue of the owner's ability to use force to assert it against rival claimants. They are wrong if they say that these rights may exist for very long or be widespread without a state to enable the efficient and peaceful ordering of these rights against those inclined to use force unjustly. However, most rightists who claim that the rights exist prior to the state argue that the state is necessary primarily for the efficient ordering of the rights, not their very existence.

The excellent Bruce Charlton has a post up today at his blog explaining exactly why it is futile or just plain wrong, for us on the right, to try to infer or defend some aspect of what Obama said in his speech that began this thread. It's not very long so rather than try to summarize, I'll just copy it below with a link:

The vital importance of inferring motivation
*

It is regarded (among rigorous rational people) as bad practice to use ad hominem arguments - attacking the man rather than his argument.

I have had this done to me, and found it maddening - people who know nothing about me imputing all kinds of false motivations and completely ignoring (or re-writing) the argument...

*

Yet this kind of thing is probably necessary (as well as inevitable) because everything hinges on motivation.

Sometimes 'reasonable' ideas must be opposed because of the motivations of those proposing them - whether these are individual motivations or institutional motivations.

*

The Left always does this - but the Right (especially the secular Right) has often been hampered by scruples against the ad hominem - however, I have come to believe that these are not really scruples, but an error.

Looking back at the long defeat of Christianity, we can see that the process was attained by an incremental series of many small steps, each of which was rationally defensible when viewed in isolation (and without making any assumptions about motivation).

Yet it is equally obvious as to the motivations of those who pursued these multiple incremental steps, that they knew exactly what they were doing: breaking-up the long term strategy into deniably-small stages, each stage ratcheting the next.

*

(It is rather like a Gateway drug: each sin a person is persuaded to adopt, leads on to further sins, in order to be consistent with or justify the gateway sin.)

*

So let's just drop the prohibition on ad hominem arguments, shall we?

When we know people or institutions are badly-motivated and aiming-at evil outcomes - then they should be opposed, even if what they are trying to do just now (considered in a specific context) seems to be pretty harmless.

Ad hominems are one thing. Twisting an opponent's words out of context and then attacking him for what he didn't say is another. Liberals do this all the time. We shouldn't stoop to their level. To do so is to join them in their infidelity to the word.

At least part of the problem might arise from the fact that decisions are often made and carried through, without proper indication of what the long-term goals and motivation behind the changes are.

Instead of attacking people based on what might as well (since this is what it often comes down to) be characterized as ones own fantasies about their motivation, would the first step not be to demand of the persons initiating such changes, to clearly state their long-time goals and motivation?

Part of the corruption of many societal traits seem to be the fact that many idealistic measures are camouflaged as urgent solutions to present problems - but nevertheless have (idealistically motivated) long-term effects.

bgc said...

@Thomas Raab - you are welcome to try! My personal experience is that this is a complete waste of time *at best* and probably actually counter-productive, perhaps because to do so means adopting a subordinate and 'pleading' stance.

Whereas anti-modern religious groups who simply ignore 'argument' and state loud and clear and repeatedly what they want or do not want, often seem to get their way (or at least get left alone).

No argument, no debate. Just tell the Left what we want, over and over and over again! Regardless their response.

Therefore it implicitly has no authority in the eyes of someone who does not.

Every moral system works that way. You reject the premise of the system, you reject the conclusions.

Since such people are often likely to enter the halls of power, that might be worth reconsidering.

Since "pure" libertarians routinely get about 3% of the popular vote or thereabouts, it hasn't escaped my notice that the Right is generally opposed to libertine social policies (including many civil rights except the 2nd amendment), while the Left is generally opposed to libertine economic policies, so our status quo has been fairly close to libertarianism which if taken in isolation would be wildly unpopular.

Okay, but if it was tied to a criminal trial and limited to the top tier and not the underlings like I indicated it should be, wouldn't that stop the abusive practices? I mean, you seem to have a premise to your argument that the government is willing to charge every Joe Schmoe as being a kingpin of a criminal conspiracy and I don't know where you get that idea.

Second, if the US government responds to being denied by simply kidnapping the terrorist and dragging him kicking and screaming back to our soil, you're unlikely to hear many complaints except the usual song and dance about American imperialist attitudes...

Because our actionable intelligence about some of these areas lasts only when the drone is in the air, and even when it does exist in a more reliable way our ability to extract people out of such areas is extremely limited. On top of that are the risks that politicians desperately try to avoid: if the kidnapping goes horribly wrong then you've lost an agent and possibly a network of assets, once kidnapped they will most likely get sent to Gitmo where they become a political headache. Drone strikes are the least bad option among a buffet of bad options.

Since you've tried to bind me to whatever they're doing...

No, I'm saying you are creating a distraction when there is in reality a broad political consensus about the drone strikes. I would be overjoyed if the Tea Party raised a fuss about the drone strikes, they say they care about civil liberties but their silence is deafening when it involves Muslims. The only ones protesting it in court are the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and family members of the deceased, with not a single conservative or libertarian organization in sight.

Just tell the Left what we want, over and over and over again! Regardless their response.

My four year old nephew tries that tactic, it doesn't work as much as it used to.

Looking back at the long defeat of Christianity, we can see that the process was attained by an incremental series of many small steps, each of which was rationally defensible when viewed in isolation (and without making any assumptions about motivation).

Pope Pius X noted this in his encyclical "Against the Modernists". The tactic was well in use 110 years ago, in philosophical liberalism. That political liberalism uses it now shouldn't surprise us, but it does.

Andrew E.

No argument, no debate. Just tell the Left what we want, over and over and over again! Regardless their response.

Step2:

My four year old nephew tries that tactic, it doesn't work as much as it used to.

Well, apparently it works pretty well against soft-headed, pre-rational middle-of-the roaders who constitute the swing votes in our elections, much to our shame - they aren't much more virtuous a citizenry than 4 year olds are. If we could figure out a way to limit the vote to people who have reached their majority in the virtues, both moral and intellectual, we would be a lot better off.

Okay, but if it was tied to a criminal trial and limited to the top tier and not the underlings like I indicated it should be, wouldn't that stop the abusive practices? I mean, you seem to have a premise to your argument that the government is willing to charge every Joe Schmoe as being a kingpin of a criminal conspiracy and I don't know where you get that idea.

If it were applicable only as a post-conviction punishment then we would be talking about something completely different here. The reason civil libertarians across the spectrum almost down to a man or woman that I've ever seen discuss the issue oppose it is because civil asset forfeiture was created distinct from the criminal law methods of taking away the assets of the criminal post conviction. It was created to be a short cut to make mounting the criminal defense harder and asset stripping easy.

I agree that the State can not be logical prior to the coherently structured society. But the point in contention is whether the individual is logically prior to the society organized as a City or not. How do we understand Aristotle's 'The City is prior to the individual or the family'?

Can the idea that City is as irreducible as the Individual be maintained? After all, heaven is also supposed to be a city.

The metaphor that Aristotle employed is quite complex actually, and can't be made to say anything not pretty abstract regarding part-whole relations, and that man is an essentially political being It's analogue would be the mystical body of Christ. Since none of us is up to the task of analyzing it really, there is only one thing to do. Go negative. Say what it isn't.

It surely was not a universal statement about the relative power of individuals in a society to act (in fact this has changed greatly over time,) nor as the attitude citizens should take towards their acts other than basic humility required by the plain facts of our political organization. And that political organization would also require us to acknowledge private contributions to our success, which Obama tellingly didn't mention. We should have a loyalty to a system of government that has been so productive and that allows us to be so productive. But that has nothing to do with any particular theory of what type of government is best.

I don't think analogy can be tortured to say anything about political philosophy other than ones as extreme as anarchism or possibly communism, unless someone can produce evidence that it was regarded as dispositive as regards political system historically. I'm doubtful. I think the real translation of the passages (book 1, chap 2) goes something like this. "Like I said, man is an essentially political being. And the good of the community, which is made up of individuals, has higher qualities because the sum is greater than the parts." For the reasons I've already given, I think this understanding is entirely neutral among reasonable political theories, because I think all of them would acknowledge that. The question always comes down to what ways best support a healthy and vibrant polis, and Aristotle's analogy simply says nothing about this.

Lydia, MikeT
I could not find Tony's argument on property rights in state of nature but as I see it, the individuals and other entities are either in a state of law or in a state of war.

In a state of law, you get 'rights', not to say 'granted' by some State but actually existing in a State (since a State is nothing else than a state of law).

In the state of war, you get 'sovereignty', which is an Assertion and not a 'right'.
A sovereign asserts his sovereignty i.e. his freedom from (temporal) laws and the assertion is backed by force and not by titles. He has territory and not property.

As I see that, the individuals are always in a state of law, saving isolated cases that affect the point as much as existence of isolated lunatics mean to the doctrine of rational nature of man.

I will get back to the relevance a little later.
I wonder if that Tony's comment could be traced.

Lydia,
The error of the economists is subtle and I think it mainly works by weakening the bonds of solidarity.
Let me give an example: the so-called price-gouging in the face of scarcity, while promoting economic efficiency in the use of scarce resource, leads to resentment and decay of bonds of solidarity if the intent of the actor is to private profit and not the common good of promoting the best use of resource.

That is, the intent of the actor matters, and this is exactly what the market liberals do not wish to hear.

It is this resentment at injustice that drives socialism and not merely or mostly envy as market liberals tend to believe. The people judge by intent, even if the liberal theory does not. The people value solidarity even if the liberal theory takes it for granted.

There was a substantial damage caused to the Family by granting separate property rights to married women but perhaps that should not be laid on advocates of strong property rights.

It is this resentment at injustice that drives socialism and not merely or mostly envy as market liberals tend to believe.

I completely disagree. All you have to do is read much of the rhetoric of the left to see that this is not so. They may _use_ the word "injustice" but what they are continuously doing is fanning the flames of envy. The constant "soak the rich" rhetoric is simply unending. That there should be some richer than others is taken as per se injustice or as evidence that those who are rich must have done wrong. Indeed, the President's very comment that is the basis of this post is an example. I note that one of my commentators seemed to think (though I may have been misunderstanding here) that his comment was directed to the poor. How interesting. I commented on this above that that is the politics of envy personified: What does he have to say "to the poor"? He tells them that the producers are parasites, that those who have done better than the poor are just getting it from other people.

This is not what the poor need to hear.

The politics of envy is a very real thing. Indeed, it is one of the gigantic weaknesses of socialist-sympathetic Catholics that they have a blind spot in this area. Yet envy is as deadly a sin as avarice, and one of the ten commandments is Thou Shalt Not Covet. Yet there is some kind of tone-deafness that makes them incapable of hearing the incessant drumbeat of the appeal to envy from the left.

I know this will be the third time in the last few comments of this thread that I'll quote Bruce Charlton but he's just been so relevant lately. What to say to the poor? Charlton says that Biblical poverty no longer exists in the West!

The 'Biblical Poor' do not exist in the West
*

There are no poor (in the Biblical sense) in the West.

(Only isolated individuals with specific causes - there are no poor as a class).

*

The Biblical Poor worked all waking hours until they dropped, suffered chronic malnutrition and usually died of starvation: almost none of their children would survive to adulthood.

*

The Modern "poor" do not work at all, are obese, have more children than anyone else, and almost all their children survive to mature adulthood.

*

Chalk and cheese.

Everyone, all classes, are nowadays wallowing in 'luxury', by ancient standards.

And this is objective, biological fact: not a matter of opinion.

*

Therefore, when modern people talk about 'the poor' as a class they are actually talking about The Rich Man: the one who had such difficulty getting to heaven - only managing it via the eye of a needle...

I like it. No argument, no debate. Just assertion. Though I think this works better when directed at the Left. Speaking of which, see Step2 above. He acknowledges that the Left and Right have nothing to discuss:

Therefore it implicitly has no authority in the eyes of someone who does not.

Every moral system works that way. You reject the premise of the system, you reject the conclusions.

But when I suggest a strategy for the Right to deal with this reality (as the Left deals with it), he mocks:

Just tell the Left what we want, over and over and over again! Regardless their response.

My four year old nephew tries that tactic, it doesn't work as much as it used to.

Classic leftist sophistry. Stick and dodge. Take up a position, then immediately abandon it and take up a new one without acknowledging the change. All in order to advance the team forward, to help acquire more power.

Back to Charlton...the point at which the poor began out-reproducing the rich can be objectively measured and cites Greg Clark of UC Davis has having done the work.

sykes.1 said...

The real problem is that the Christian and Jewish churches are so deluded as to believe the modern poor are in fact the Biblical poor. Hence all the nonsense about social justice.

bgc said...

@sykes - my interpretation is that mainstream churches are primarily Leftist, with Leftism continually evolving, and they fit Christianity around that as best they can.

The idea that Leftism is about alleviating poverty has been wrong from the start - perhaps it was an honest mistake at first, but since the mid 1960s it has been a dishonest mistake.

Leftism got going in the 1800s just at the point when, for the first time in human history, the poorest began out-reproducing the riches: this process is objectively measurable, and has recently been done by Greg Clark of UC Davis.

The industrial revolution benefited the poor differentially far more than the rich; yet Leftism wanted to disrupt or reverse this process on the basis that 'capitalism' was oppressing the poor.

I am not saying that the industrial revolution was 'a good thing' - but if your main goal is to abolish poverty, it certainly was a good thing.

The Left supported China when it was exterminating its population by the ten million - but when China began to eliminate poverty the Left began hating it.

Leftism is evil - root and branch - but of course that does not apply to individual people who are Leftists. In fact, only a tiny (albeit growing) proportion of Leftists are purposively evil; sadly some of these are among the most powerful of people.

Sorry Andrew E. but it requires no argument. Please convince me that the people that Mother Teresa worked with in India are not poor. That they are not poor "Biblically" is irrelevant. That type of shabby hermeneutic locks the dominical commands to help the poor (as well as the warnings against riches) into a closed historical period and thus diminishes their universally binding character. Christ did not say "The poor you always have with you, at least until the triumph of capitalism."

India is not the West. The title to Charlton's post: "The 'Biblical Poor' do not exist in the West"

What then to do?

Not, surely, to scour the world in search of genuine poor to whom we can then give alms.

Not, surely, to import genuine poor in vast numbers such that they can be sustained by coercively-extracted taxes.

Not, surely, to redefine poverty in relativistic rather than absolute terms (so 'the poor' are 'always with us' - but not because there are always poor people, but instead because there is always a bottom ten, or twenty, or whatever, percent of the population as defined in some statistically-measurable definition of wealth.)

Not, surely, to deliberately create and sustain local poverty in order that alms may be given them.

With globalization, what does 'the West' really mean when speaking in economic terms? As Western consumers we have a connection with, and thus a responsibility to, the poor of non-Western countries we import from, like it or not.

In any case, while the poor of Appalachia may not be as poor as those of India, it seems to me that it is quite disingenuous and callous to state that they are not poor, and that therefore almsgiving should not apply to them. Historical Christianity would reject such sloppy thinking.

If it were applicable only as a post-conviction punishment then we would be talking about something completely different here.

It would be applicable only post-trial, so it wouldn't affect their criminal defense. Clearly a judge should give a lot of weight to the criminal trial verdict, but he could also take into account other factors and evidence outside the scope of a criminal trial.

He acknowledges that the Left and Right have nothing to discuss:

That is sort of an odd interpretation. I can reject your moral system and still try to understand why you believe it to be true and whether or not there is common ground somewhere else within your belief structure. For example: Mark 10:23-25

Property, being a lawful claim, is in the nature of an argument. The universe of such arguments pertaining to a particular City is that City. Being lawful, property must not be stolen but can be.

Arguments could be sub-political or pre-political i.e. existing on individual, family and community levels. But property in land is necessarily political since land is inextricably involved as the very material cause of the City along with the population.

Sovereignty is pure assertion thus we speak not of property but of territory. A territory can not be stolen but conquered. Unlike thefts, conquests are not illicit in themselves,

Since the universe of argument and thus 'property rights' is contained in a particular sovereignty, the 'sovereign will' overrides
each claim and is an unanswerable argument. But the 'sovereign will ' does not imply arbitrariness; since all polities are informed by Natural Law, the polities that achieve a closer approach to the Natural Law admit of greater rationality in that moves the sovereign will.

In the state of war, you get 'sovereignty', which is an Assertion and not a 'right'.
A sovereign asserts his sovereignty i.e. his freedom from (temporal) laws and the assertion is backed by force and not by titles. He has territory and not property.

This is not what sovereignty actually means...

It would be applicable only post-trial, so it wouldn't affect their criminal defense. Clearly a judge should give a lot of weight to the criminal trial verdict, but he could also take into account other factors and evidence outside the scope of a criminal trial.

If you want to reform it, make forfeiting all assets proved to be connected to the criminal enterprise part of the criminal punishment. There should never be an outcome from a civil trial that results in the deprivation of liberty without the full standards of criminal law.

The Left try to arouse envy but what gives their propaganda traction among the millions is not purely envy but also a hankering for justice.

It ought to be noted that what we claim as poverty today was not in any sense poverty in the ancient sense. It is more likely that the ancient church fathers would harshly denounce the motivations of much of the Left's base, including much of the modern Catholic Church, than side with them. All of the necessities for living are accessible to the common man in developed nations at a cost in labor that is substantially lower than what the peasants in antiquity paid.

If anything, the church fathers would be horrified to see the common good torn down by ever increasing standards of what it means to respect human dignity and development. We've gone from preventing the poor from starving to death to saying that if we don't give an old man who statistically has 2 more years to live a $500k medical operation at public expense that we're a cruel society. I suspect they would have seen through the financial insanity of our values and would notice how the long-term trend of this thinking would lead inexorably to a poorer society which is less capable of caring for the needs of the needy.

The Left try to arouse envy but what gives their propaganda traction among the millions is not purely envy but also a hankering for justice.

Pure making excuses. One can always find something excusing to say about "the people" and "what gives propaganda traction among the millions." You might as well say that what gave Nazi propaganda traction among the millions was a hankering for a "purer City" or some such nonsense. Any time propaganda abuses some idea or some word, we can _say_ that "what gives it traction" is a hankering after that idea or that word. It does not in the slightest degree follow that the people who thus hanker have been denied that thing by someone else or that their hankering has a basis in a real lack of that thing in their world which we must heed.

I've just been reading what the "universal destination of goods" is. On its face, the name sounds like a socialist concept. As spelled out as I've been reading it, it could mean a lot of different things as a Catholic church teaching (like many social Catholic church teachings). It has the potential to be used by the socialist-sympathetic in something like the way you are using it, Gian. It also looks like it could be used to argue for free market economics as the best way for the largest number of people to be doing well. Indeed, it inspires me to comment, echoing Rush Limbaugh, that the cause of foreign countries' abject poverty is the unequal distribution of capitalism!

The way you are using it, as some kind of excuse for the effectiveness of poisonous leftist envy-mongering, I haven't the slightest, tiniest sympathy. At all.

Our "poor" in America are told what to think about motives and foolishly believe it, and think it has something to do with public policy and that they should get a "larger slice of the pie." Evidently you buy the propaganda as well, since you keep going on about motives. Indeed, I begin to find that a little tiresome--the insinuating, vague statement that "the poor do not neglect motives." Really, how useful it must be to be poor and therefore to be divinely endowed with some sort of poor-man-specific ESP that allows one to know the motives of "the rich" as a class in America and to see that they are bad!

I'm sorry, but that kind of throwaway line ("the poor do not neglect motives") is not serious analysis and does not deserve a serious response.

The Left downplays envy and ascribes the majority of our economic woes to greed. The mainstream/libertarian Right does exactly the opposite. Interesting that both are guilty of fudging on one of the 7 deadly sins. A truly Christian economics would not give either envy or greed a pass.

It ought to be noted that what we claim as poverty today was not in any sense poverty in the ancient sense. It is more likely that the ancient church fathers would harshly denounce the motivations of much of the Left's base, including much of the modern Catholic Church, than side with them.

Mike: I think you're right. I've lived in South Texas and people there are very aware of how statistics are used to make life there seem pathetic because of the average income. Yet what I found was a highly family-oriented environment where people were quite aware of the tradeoffs involved in getting more income, and made a lot better choices than many I knew from statistically more prosperous areas and actually lived better lives because of it. I think the Church fathers would take a dim view of the use of social statistics generally to make comparisons that could imply a person's value and I think this is done very frequently by the Left and Right unfortunately. Now if the statistic is measuring something that can itself be condemned on its own that would be another matter.

In your definition that sovereignty is an assertion at odds with the rule of law. Our own legal system gives qualified legal immunity from prosecution to field agents and absolute legal immunity for most of the actions of prosecutors. Perhaps you would say that our system is thus based on "sovereignty, not law" but I doubt it.

I think the Church fathers would take a dim view of the use of social statistics generally to make comparisons that could imply a person's value and I think this is done very frequently by the Left and Right unfortunately. Now if the statistic is measuring something that can itself be condemned on its own that would be another matter.

This is why I am so unimpressed with arguments about inequality and poverty. Most people who want the lifestyle of a high income family aren't willing to put in the investment to make it happen. They want access to that level of health care, housing, cars, etc. without paying the personal and familial toll that often comes with it. It is not something to be taken lightly; studies have shown that pursuing this lifestyle increases greatly the odds of marital dissatisfaction, divorce and other family problems.

Universal Destination of Goods is actually a pre-theory that is yet to be fully developed in social teaching. It is a hope of a theory, still looking for well-established framework of principles that could enable it to be fleshed out into something like a social directive. Here is a typical example:

One of the critical principles of the common good derives directly from the fact that all persons, not just a few, are intended to participate in man’s dominion over nature. This principle is called “the universal destination of goods”. All of creation is given not just to man, but to all men, so that each might exercise a creative and conserving dominion, completing and perfecting creation for God’s glory. This universal destination of goods implies a universal right to use the goods of the earth, a right of which no person may be completely or even largely deprived without grave injustice (except as necessary to prevent attacks on the common good itself).

Note that the universal destination of goods does not militate against personal ownership or private property. To the contrary, ownership is essential to free and full participation in the universal destination of goods. It is the ordinary means by which we exercise dominion, provide for ourselves and others, act as good stewards, creatively develop resources, and so participate more effectively in God’s plan. But at the same time, we can see that because the destination of goods is universal, ownership and private property are not absolute values in themselves. They have a larger social function, and the proper exercise of that larger function is essential to the common good.

As far as I can see, almost the whole pre-theory rests on the Genesis grant of dominion to Adam and Eve. But that grant did not explain, did not clarify, did not point in a direction for any specific allocation of that dominion. As a result, it is an uphill battle making that gift into something that requires a specific conclusion about how we ought to order society.

Here is a good example. Let us suppose that the original grant of dominion demands that all persons share in the total wealth. Is there anything in the principle that tells us, once all persons have that level of wealth required to sustain life and human dignity, what distribution of goods applies to the EXCESS? No, it doesn't. Those who try to make God's general grant mean that society ought to re-distribute the wealth so that all persons share equally not only in the basic level required for life, but in the surplus and excess over that level, do so not on any principled reading of Genesis, but on a presumption rooted in a desire for equality. That desire is distinctly unfounded in Scripture and natural law. Nature does not give each person an equal degree of athletic ability, in mental ability, in empathy, in sense perception. There is nothing in natural law that prescribes that each should have equal wealth. Likewise, God does not so order the spiritual world so that each person has an equal grant of spiritual gifts: some have lesser, some greater gifts. Nothing should make us expect that all should enjoy equally in the material goods of our dominion, after all have the basic requirements of life.

And, in fact, common sense tells us that it is impossible. Since (as the above theorizing maintains) private property is a necessary element of our dominion, and since nature gives to some greater intelligence and creativity, it is INEVITABLE that some will develop more wealth with his "share" than others. To immediately take away the least excess so developed in the name of a universal claim for equality would, effectively, do away with true private property and replace it with a sham. Likewise, some men will be imprudent and malicious with their "share", and destroy it. To immediately replace the destroyed wealth with another allotment would make a mockery of solidarity.

All you can say, then, about this "universal destination" (in terms of practical social teaching) is that it is a better condition for all men to have a share in wealth, enough to sustain life, and if possible enough to perform some long-range stewardship. But as far as prescriptions as to how to get there and how to sustain that, the theory is unable to say much in a universal sense, except for retaining the mandate for private property and subsidiarity: more of "don'ts" than "do's" for political ordering.

Sovereignty is pure assertion thus we speak not of property but of territory. A territory can not be stolen but conquered. Unlike thefts, conquests are not illicit in themselves,

True only if there is no law higher than human positive law.

"Sovereignty" refers to the supreme legitimate political authority of a polity, that authority that answers to no higher formulated, human, earthly entity. In Britain of 1750, that was the monarch. In France today, it is national government.

If there is no natural law that binds humans to observe human political law, then there is nothing that constitutes any limitation on the claims of the sovereign. And if the sovereign conquers a new territory, there cannot be any "higher" law that forbids it.

But if there is a natural law, and a Divine law above human politics, then the sovereign is constrained by these higher laws. That's why I added the word "legitimate" in my definition. There can be no legitimate use of the governing power that contradicts the higher authority of natural law or divine law on which the lower authority of a sovereign rests. Likewise, conquering a new territory on a false pretext (think Germany invading Poland in 1939) does not make the conquerer a legitimate authority of the new territory, and he does not extend his sovereignty thereby. And sovereignty itself is not a "pure assertion", because it is the claim by the legitimate authority, and you cannot obtain legitimate authority merely by pure assertion.

(Oddly, the US government is not, simply speaking, THE sovereign power over US citizens. The federal authority by design is sovereign only within limited, enumerated spheres of action. The states retain sovereignty outside those limited spheres. Hence, de jure in the US sovereignty is shared between the federal and state governments.)

Tony,
There is no 'oddly' here but a misunderstanding.
1) US Govt is NOT sovereign and neither are the States. The sovereignty resides in We The People of the United States. The various govts are merely agents of the Sovereign People having designated spheres of authority.

It is the City itself that has supreme political authority over the Individuals. It is a tautology flowing from the word 'political' itself. Again from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Francisco Suárez makes the community itself the depositary, immediately and naturally consequent upon its establishment of civil society, to be disposed of then by their consent, overt or tacit, at once or by degrees, according as they determine for themselves a form of government. This is the only true philosophical sense of the dictum that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed".

Your sentence "The federal authority by design is sovereign only within limited, enumerated spheres of action." contradicts your own definition of sovereignty.
The word "sovereign" should be replaced here by "authority".

2) "But if there is a natural law, and a Divine law above human politics, then the sovereign is constrained by these higher laws"
Excluding the Divine Law, note that I also wrote:
" the 'sovereign will ' does not imply arbitrariness; since all polities are informed by Natural Law, the polities that achieve a closer approach to the Natural Law admit of greater rationality in that moves the sovereign will."
So it is not the 'Pure Will' of Hobbes.

3) "the conquerer a legitimate authority of the new territory, and he does not extend his sovereignty thereby. And sovereignty itself is not a "pure assertion", because it is the claim by the legitimate authority, and you cannot obtain legitimate authority merely by pure assertion."

You need to think on two levels: a state of war and a state of law. The State of law exists within a polity, tautologically. The sovereign is not the Legitimate Authority of the polity but the polity itself.
Suppose USA conquers Canada. By definition of USA as a sovereign nation, there is no civil law that overrides the assertion of USA over Canadian territory. There could only be a counter-assertion on part of Canadians and other interested parties.
Now USA Govt may be violating its own laws in conquering Canada but that is an Argument within USA.

The question of legitimacy of American conquest arises for the Canadians and other interested parties. It is for them to decide. They may accept the American assertion or deny it.

That is, in the State of War, legitimacy is not an argument but an assertion.
Arguments can only exist in the state of laws. Now humans are never in an absolute state of war i,e. a war of each against each so arguments have some validity in any situation but not absolutely.

Perhaps this view of legitimacy is relevant to an earlier discussion of political legitimacy and puzzles raised therein?

Consider the case of gun (or any other arms) ownership in a Republic. Now a gun may be validly owned for
1) Hunting and recreation
2) To deter crime and self-defense
3) As an ultimate recourse against State tyranny
4) As a militia to defend the State itself.

I regard the prevalence of motives (2) and (3) as signs of imperfection in the Republic.
There is no need to self-defense in a (perfect) state of laws and it is idle to pretend to combat tyranny with arms. For one, the State has better arms, secondly, tyranny should be and can be combated politically, and thirdly, a revolution is generally a bad idea, fourthly, it has never been successful in American context to combat tyranny by arms. The State is pretty tyrannical right now, but nobody is talking about arms.
Perhaps

Mike T,
The rule of law exists for entities within a sovereignty, i.e. sovereign nation or polity, not for the sovereign itself. This is precisely what Locke said: the Princes exist in a state of Nature.

The term "state of war" he reserved for princes actually at war and a criminal attacking a person (the situation of self-defense, where it is legitimate for a person to kill another),

Tony,
You are correct that the Doctrine is not fully fleshed out. But whose fault is that?
Still, it is useful in countering the error, both of socialists and of assorted libertarians, Mieseans esp since the Catholics seem to form a large contingent thereof.

There is a lot of reference in Old Testament to the various nations. The private property is preceded, both logically and historically, by national territories. Put in another way, property is that which is secured by law, while territory is that which is secured by force. Thus, property is rational while territory is animal and the dual organization of humanity, with indispensable property and territory, reflects our dual rational animal nature.

Now who is being Hobbesian? You are ignoring how natural law applies to the extra-polity arena.

By definition of USA as a sovereign nation, there is no civil law that overrides the assertion of USA over Canadian territory.

What of St. Thomas's oft-reference "Law of Nations". There is a body of extra-national law that is implicit in man's nature. It does not need to be a law laid down by a specific polity in order to be real law.

The sovereignty resides in We The People of the United States. The various govts are merely agents of the Sovereign People having designated spheres of authority.

You are introducing an equivocation on the meaning of the word in this, and the equivocation damages the rest of your discussion. You keep flipping back and forth between one use and the other. It is true that "we the people" are the natural first depository of authority under God. But "we the people" cannot exercise that natural authority directly, without some kind of constituted framework. Once that constitution is in place and there is a real polity in place, there is a government, and the government is that agent by which the polity exercises authority. By common usage, that governing agent is "the sovereign." Otherwise, it would never make any sense to refer to a monarch as a sovereign, but that IS the most clear common usage we have. The fact that the people have a more fundamental capacity, including the capacity to dissolve the constitutional order and impose a new one, does not imply that the people's role constitutes a pre-constitutional constitution. When a people institute a new order and a new government, it is not actually governing, it is FORMING a government, as Suarez says.

A people is not free whether to have a government, that is not what natural law gives. All they can do is decide in what order to formulate the governing authority.

There should never be an outcome from a civil trial that results in the deprivation of liberty without the full standards of criminal law.

Civil trials do have the same standards of evidence and very similar if not identical forms of procedure, but a criminal trial is focused on the intents and actions of the person being tried and less concerned with how their property is used, and of course the standard of guilt for criminal court is beyond a reasonable doubt. So while I disagree with your conclusion, I agree with the implicit notion that these should meet normal civil trial standards and should not be a rubber stamp for the DA to confiscate the property of the accused.

Really, how useful it must be to be poor and therefore to be divinely endowed with some sort of poor-man-specific ESP that allows one to know the motives of "the rich" as a class in America and to see that they are bad!

I suppose all those posts Paul has written about usury and the plutocracy have been an exercise in futility then. You can't examine the motives of entire groups of people, like the envious poor for instance, that is reserved only for those with ESP.

It does not need to be a law laid down by a specific polity in order to be real law.

It isn't a law then. It can be sort of a mutual understanding, until one group decides it isn't. A law needs an enforcement mechanism, and the method to get that is to have a penalty system for non-compliance.

Tony,
I will come to monarchy later but first let's settle whether The Govt of USA is a servant of the People or their Sovereign. It can not be both.

Regarding Law of Nations, I may be wrong but I do not see how it could forbid conquest altogether. Doing so would make all of the modern states to be illegitimate.

On whether a monarch is really sovereign, Belloc in the French Revolution (chap Political Theory of the Revolution):

He that is most enamoured of some set machinery for the government of
men, and who regards the sacramental function of an hereditary monarch
(as in Russia), the organic character of a native oligarchy (as in
England), the mechanical arrangement of election by majorities, or even
in a crisis the intense conviction and therefore the intense activity
and conclusive power of great crowds as salutary to the State, will
invariably, if any one of these engines fail him in the achievement of
what he desires for his country, fall back upon the doctrine of an
ultimately sovereign community. He will complain that though an
election has defeated his ideal, yet true national tradition and true
national sentiment were upon his side. If he defends the action of a
native oligarchy against the leaders of the populace, he does so by an
explanation (more or less explicit) that the oligarchy is more truly
national, that is more truly communal, than the engineered expression of
opinion of which the demagogues (as he will call them) have been the
mouthpieces. Even in blaming men for criticising or restraining an
hereditary monarch the adherent of that monarch will blame them upon the
ground that their action is anti-national, that is anti-communal; and,
in a word, no man pretending to sanity can challenge in matters temporal
and civil the ultimate authority of whatever is felt to be (though with
what difficulty is it not defined!) the general civic sense which builds
up a State.
---------------------------------------------------

The rule of law exists for entities within a sovereignty, i.e. sovereign nation or polity, not for the sovereign itself. This is precisely what Locke said: the Princes exist in a state of Nature.

You didn't address the fact that there are laws and precedents which put government agents outside the law on our own soil. In the case of police, they have qualified civil immunity. Prosecutors have absolute civil immunity for anything they do in a court of law as a prosecutor. The Supreme Court has ruled that a prosecutor may not be civilly liable even if they introduce a witness they know in advance will commit perjury against an innocent party. There is virtually no difference between the state of war you posit and this "state of law."

The term "state of war" he reserved for princes actually at war and a criminal attacking a person (the situation of self-defense, where it is legitimate for a person to kill another),

Any use of "state of war" used in contrast to "state of law" which can include both actual war and banal criminal acts is functionally useless.

I have suggested that regarding Adam and Eve as monarchs will resolve the singular instances from Genesis.

Baloney. If you want to misuse the term polity and government, you can call them monarchs, or you can call them monarch butterflies, but that's not real. Monarchs require a polity to be monarchs of and polities by definition are larger than families. The Greeks distinguished their city-states from the barbarian tribes precisely by this issue: barbarian tribes had family-based authority, not polities and political rule. Furthermore, a family authority has essentially different sort of authority than does a state: a father cannot ever cease to be the father of a family, no matter how much you repudiate his wishes / orders / dictates. There is simply no such thing as overthrowing the fatherhood of your father, all you and the rest of the family can do is refuse to act on it. (You can even be justified in refusing to act on it in some measure, insofar as he might abuse the role, but he REMAINS your father regardless). Whereas, if you and the rest of the polity repudiate the authority of the monarch because he gravely and lastingly abuses it, he ceases to actually be monarch.

In time, after a number of generations had been born and grew up to form a large, varied community, it could have become a polity, and THEN Adam could have been king. Not before. If you examine the quote from Belloc, you will see that he agrees - there is no such thing as the authority of a sovereign until there is a community capable of political order. And that is absolutely not the case in a nuclear family, it takes a much larger community.

But one need not rely solely on Cain and Abel. Noah's sons obtained a division of property without conquering and without a state. Abraham became possessed of land near Bethel, without one mention of either a political order from which he received it, or any conquering. It was untenanted and he sat his tent on it and possessed it, long before he had children and still longer before there was any nation of Israel.

Still more, every historical and pre-historical opening up of new lands included hardy souls venturing into wilderness, and beginning the process of taming it with little more than a shovel, an axe, and a few sheep. No part of the process required a state or any authority to permit the process. The pioneering explorers who made California a settled Spanish colony did not do so by settling Spanish territory, the territory became Spanish by the acts of their settling it. King James might have laid claim to Virginia, but the only POSSIBLE reason his claim had any weight is because Smith and his people decided to continue to call themselves Englishmen. If they had instead determined right from the start that they were founding a new nation, King James could only have done something about it by...conquering them, since the polity of Britain had nothing to do with American territory at the time.

Mike T,
I may not be getting you. I am doing an ideal that the actual practice of USA may not always reach. There are perhaps valid points in the US practice.

"actual war and banal criminal acts is functionally useless."
Not so. A criminal is an outlaw. He acts outside the state of laws. Functionally, he is as outside the State as a foreign nation at war, esp as in the relation with the victim of the crime.

Tony,
1) The Law of Nations is implied in what I have called the 'pre-political argument' and is a sufficient argument for chattel property. I have tentatively suggested that the pre-political argument may not bear the burden of landed property. I think that agrees with Aquinas, as the Law of Nations is for international trade and laws of war and such-like matters.

2) Singular instances may be met with singular means. However, it can be maintained that Adam and Eve were created in a state of law, even a perfect state of law. That is all I argue for the notion of property. I do not require coronations, courts of justice, a written constitution, standing army etc.

3) Was Noah's property land or chattel?

4) Abraham is an interesting case. He was embedded in Canaan polities. You have spoken of his 'possessions' and not 'property'. At first, he had no landed property, only animals and thus it is more natural to speak of the territories in which his animals grazed. Notice that Abraham possessed an army. His possessions were secured though arms and not by law. Thus the land he put his tent upon, and the land his animals grazed were not his property. I think Locke would agree.

Later he brought his property from Canaanites in an Assembly. It was a formal transaction, taking place in a well-established polity.

5) "a shovel, an axe, and a few sheep". And without a gun or sword? or was axe sufficient?.

I agree that new lands are opened up by hardy souls, often without state authorization. But I maintain that until a state of law obtains there, one can not speak of private properties in land (if my point about pre-political argument is right).

Question: Is a landed property ultimately secured by arms or by title?

6) Greeks may have regarded the barbarians as having no law and no polity but I do not agree with them. The monarchy is an outgrowth from patriarchal beginnings. but it is a valid polity. I would regard even a tribal band as a polity since it embodies the Natural Law in a form suitable to a small group.
The key point is whether an individual and his possessions are secured by arms or by law. This is how state of law and state of nature are defined. Now, within a tribal band, surely it must be some law that secures individuals and it is essentially the same law that secures individuals in a modern polity 300 million strong.

Notice that the tribal bands are not nuclear families. Would they practice incest?

Also, a tribal polity may consist of a loose federation of tribal bands.

The expansion of a polity into new lands, it could rarely be an individual affair. It is often state-sponsored: think of Greek colonies and Polynesian expeditions.

Even when not State-sponsored, generally it would have involved movement of a whole groups of people joined in a common enterprise. So first there must be territorial expansion followed by carving-up of the common territory into individual parcels.

Mike T,
"there are laws and precedents which put government agents outside the law on our own soil. "

A conflicted statement, possibly describing a defective state of law (but not a state of nature).
'on the soil' I do not see significance of.

Plenty of nations have laws providing immunity to Presidents, Prime Ministers and other dignitaries. Such laws may be unwise but they do not cast the notion of state of law into doubt. Entities in the state of nature have no law above them, either they cooperate voluntarily or they make war. The law of Nations, a pre-political argument or a basic level of reasonableness lets them cooperate. This law is along them, as it were and not over them. They are not secured by law but by arms.

Politically, criminal acts are never banal but serious rents on the state of law.

The key point is whether an individual and his possessions are secured by arms or by law. This is how state of law and state of nature are defined. Now, within a tribal band, surely it must be some law that secures individuals and it is essentially the same law that secures individuals in a modern polity 300 million strong.

There are so many mistakes and misunderstandings in this that I hardly know where to start. Just to take one: "are secured by arms or by law" is hopelessly confused. Being "secure" in your possessions in the sense that a bandit won't take them away because he fears the consequences of trying (whether the consequences come either from your shotgun or from the police and courts being irrelevant - it is still due to his fear), isn't the same as being "secure" in your possessions because they belong to you as under your stewardship and choice for disposition by true ownership - such that you can (of right, and either by force or by law) retrieve them from a bandit when he grabs them. Your confusing the two senses would make the old phrase "possession is nine tenths of the law" into "possession is 10 tenths of the law."

Secondly, you have no basis for making the distinction "arms or law" in this context, because in your framework arms and conquest is the only thing that makes law enforced, enforceable, and thus a valid claim of any sort. It is "arms alone". Law is just the frosting on long-established threat of arms.

Well, your sense of what law is, and what a polity is, and what a government is, are just plain different from mine, and different from St. Thomas's, and St. Robert Bellarmine's, and Suarez's and probably James Madison's to boot. It is hopeless for me to attempt to explain it to you, if you cannot see the difference between fatherly authority which in principle cannot be supplanted and a monarch who CAN be supplanted. Your notion of polity is gravely different from that of the Greeks, and they are the ones who INVENTED the dang idea and passed it on to Western civilization.

Functionally, he is as outside the State as a foreign nation at war, esp as in the relation with the victim of the crime.

Funny, because the Law of Nations does not permit you to treat an enemy soldier the way we (rightly) treat a criminal. No, your notion of what law and state is, unfortunately, has somehow been overtaken by a strange hodge-podge of Robert Filmer and Thomas Hobbes (and maybe John Locke), rather than a true expansion of Thomistic thought.

Suarez the Jesuit rises up against the royal authority of Adam in defence of the freedom and liberty of the people, and this argues, 'By right of creation' (saith he) 'Adam had only economical power, but not political. He had power over his wife, and a fatherly power over his sons, whilst they were not made free. He might also, in process of time, have servants and a complete family, and in that family he might have complete economical power. But after that families began to be multiplied, and men to be separated and become heads of several families, and they had the same power over their families. But political power did not begin until families began to be gathered together into one perfect community. Wherefore, as the community did not begin by the creation of Adam, nor by his will alone, but of all of them which did agree in this community, so we cannot say that Adam naturally had political primacy in that community. For that cannot be gathered by any natural principles, because by the force of law of nature alone it is not due to any progenitor to be also King of his posterity. And if this be not gathered out of the principles of nature, we cannot say, 'God by a special gift or providence gave him this power", for there is no revelation of this, nor testimony of Scripture.'

(Robert Filmer, arguing against Suarez and general Catholic theory in Patriarcha).

I agree that new lands are opened up by hardy souls, often without state authorization. But I maintain that until a state of law obtains there, one can not speak of private properties in land (if my point about pre-political argument is right).

Private property in regards land is a necessary extension of private property over "chattel". If a man goes out into the frontier beyond the borders of any state and kills a buffalo and brings it back, the buffalo is his without the input of his society. That's private property.

If a man goes out into the uninhabited frontier and clears land, plows ground, plants corn, tends and weeds it, and harvests the ears, the corn harvested is his without permission or grant of title by society. It is his and BELONGS to him even if a bandit comes and takes it. He holds ownership rights over it even if he is blocked from exercise of those rights by the bandit. Lack of arms and lack of positive law do not deprive him of a claim to private property.

And during the period when the corn thus planted is growing, he holds some (potentially limited, but real) title to the land: he can rightly and justly defend his crop's land from being overrun by wagoneers blazing a new path through the wilderness, as being more his than theirs - in justice, even though not in socially testimented, documented approval. The fact that justice is on the side of his defense even though he may not have weapons to achieve it and has no police to call up on his behalf, and no deed of title, shows that he has a property right independently of arms or positive human law.

Tony,
My ideas are only tentatively posed, subject to indefinite corrections for which I am obliged to you.
However, in your farmer in wilderness example, I must disagree. This is no merely theoretical example for in many countries, tribals practice this very kind of shifting agriculture, even this day. It is fairly common in Central Indian forests and the new laws recognize it.
BUT they do not award ownership in land to the farmer.
The crop is farmer's and while it is growing, others may not encroach upon the land while it is growing. But the land is not his ownership.

Tony,
The New World was settled within a national or political framework. The Spanish explorers and settlers went to Spanish territories, the Portuguese went to Brazil the French to New France and English to New England
Note that there are and there were no Spanish-speaking enclaves in Brazil and vice-verse no Portuguese speaking enclaves in Spanish America.
In fact, Pope had awarded the New World between Spain and Portugal very early on, much before any significant settling had been done.

Similarly, USA had claimed the West before it was settled. The arch-individualist Thoreau complained that This government does not settle West. as if it was a Govt duty to do so.

The New England was settled communally. Towns were established from the very start.

Tony,
Regarding kings and their sovereignty, perhaps there is an useful distinction to me made. We can say that the Sovereignty "vests" in the King or the King in Parliament (as in UK).
In American context, we could say that the sovereignty vests partly in the Federal Govt and partly in the States.

This is no merely theoretical example for in many countries, tribals practice this very kind of shifting agriculture, even this day. It is fairly common in Central Indian forests and the new laws recognize it.

Did you notice my condition "beyond the borders of any state"?

The crop is farmer's and while it is growing, others may not encroach upon the land while it is growing. But the land is not his ownership.

During the period the farmer's planted seed is in the land, he has a claim on the land - a claim of control over it more than someone else. That's a _kind_ of ownership, even if not full and complete ownership. That's all I need to point to ownership in land. Sufficient for my purpose, which is that property rights can exist outside of social grant.

The New World was settled within a national or political framework. The Spanish explorers and settlers went to Spanish territories, the Portuguese went to Brazil the French to New France and English to New England.

Cart and horse. The pope did not award lands by legal authority (he had no authority to do so), certainly not to the British who did not recognize him. And by and large the larger settlements simply followed the first, absolutely free steps to investigate, explore, and begin to "own" different areas. It is impossible for a nation to rightfully claim, simply by fiat, an absolutely new territory "within" a political framework - by being beyond all previous territorial limits, the new territory cannot be subject to the prior political order YET. Think it through. A claim is merely puff and noise until there is a valid BASIS for the claim. The only possible basis for the claim being valid rather than mere noise is that actual people are actually there doing stuff toward settling it. Those actual people and their actual activities, and their doing these things in reference to the prior existing community, are what extend the polity into the new territory, not the claim alone.

Tony,
"are secured by arms or by law"
"they belong to you as under your stewardship and choice for disposition by true ownership "
"such that you can (of right, and either by force or by law) retrieve them from a bandit"

What is this "true ownership". If I do not misread you, it seems you think there is some magic act that confers "true ownership" which then may either be protected by law or by personal force of the owner.

My claim is that this magic act can occur only in a state of law (i.e it makes sense only in the state of law). To be obliged to use personal force to defend ownership is a Defect in the state of law.
The necessity of force takes one back to the state of nature. Perhaps you disagree?

You, with Locke, place great credence in human reasonableness such property titles exist in state of nature. Oddly then you believe that the use of force is not derogatory to the state of law. You don't seem to be making a proper distinction between state of law and state of nature.

"the Law of Nations does not permit you to treat an enemy soldier the way we (rightly) treat a criminal."
I am confused. Can a criminal be tortured? executed without a trial?

"It is impossible for a nation to rightfully claim, simply by fiat, an absolutely new territory"

There is no "rightfully" or "wrongfully" here. Claims to territories are pure Assertion. There is no framework of laws that could ever apply. The Princes are in a state of nature.
Similarly
"he had no authority to do so"

He didn't need any authority. He made an Assertion. The others may accept or deny this assertion.

"A claim is merely puff and noise until there is a valid BASIS for the claim. "
The Assertion drives the actual process of individual efforts.to realize it, the final cause, so to speak.

Tony,
1) The farmer owns the growing crop. The land may not be encroached, that's all, similar to the situation that a woman delivering a baby on another's property may not be ejected. A poor analogy but hopefully you see the point.

2) How many Americans were there in the West when USA claimed it?. What was rightful about that claim?. If you say that it was rightful by American laws, then why should Indians care about that?.

Tony,
"opening up of new lands included hardy souls venturing into wilderness, and beginning the process of taming it with little more than a shovel, an axe, and a few sheep"
"The pioneering explorers who made California a settled Spanish colony did not do so by settling Spanish territory, the territory became Spanish by the acts of their settling it"

May I direct attention to a subtle Euro-(or rather settler) centralism implicit in your views?

The New World was not empty. Even the empty-looking wilderness was a tribal territory, of a hunter polity, perhaps. Now a hunter polity may not 'develop' its territory and may not assign private property in land to its members. But failing to develop its territory hardly means
that the members of that polity have no rights.

The settler-centric view that assigns ownership on the basis of 'developing' a plot of land in a state of nature fails to do justice to non-settler polities and also to non-settler people in polities in general.

So were the settlers stealing the tribal land?
Or would you rather view them as invading the tribal lands?.

There were stretches of the Americas that were empty. But that doesn't matter: when the Indians came over the land bridge, it WAS EMPTY. That is adequate for my point, there were cases of land being settled from pristine wilderness with no claim on it. But this is all peripheral to the main point: Private property (including chattel) can exist that does not rest on society for the owner's just claim.

How many Americans were there in the West when USA claimed it?. What was rightful about that claim?. If you say that it was rightful by American laws, then why should Indians care about that?.

I don't say that the claim was rightful. Jefferson's purchase of the Louisiana Territory, as a true and just cause of ownership of the land, is a complete joke. The only thing the purchase price did was give the US freedom from France claiming the land, nothing else. Indians, Russia and others could (and did) make opposing claims, some of them just.

The settler-centric view that assigns ownership on the basis of 'developing' a plot of land in a state of nature fails to do justice to non-settler polities and also to non-settler people in polities in general.

You should read this and then come back. There are different kinds of claims on land, and some of them can ONLY be determined by society. But not all. The claim of a frontier farmer on the land to the extent of its holding his crop, even if limited and temporary, is a right of control that is ONE element of the bundle of rights we call ownership. You may call that "not encroachment" but that's just an element of what we mean by ownership.

Also, you seem to be treating landed property as a special, unique class of private property. Whether it is or isn't is finally irrelevant to my point (that property rights can exist without society's causing them), but it is puzzling that you should think of it that way. I don't see the need for it. To make the issue more clear: we USUALLY think of land as a fixed, stable, unchanging entity so that a claim on it is a claim of permanence. But that's a bit of a mistake. A person who owns river-front land can find themselves owning nothing at all if the river shifts course and gobbles up that land. Same with an ocean shore. Something similar happens to a hill-side that is carved out and sold for gravel, limestone building, etc. Once in a great while an earthquake eradicates some piece of land. And it is even more clear when you consider a semi-distant future, in which men will reach the asteroids, making some of them "home" but using others as a resource for smelters and the like, to turn into steel beams. In some places water is as important as land. In a settlement on the moon, air will be an important property. They are all _things_ that can be owned privately.

So were the settlers stealing the tribal land?
Or would you rather view them as invading the tribal lands?.

Just curious: does the fact that you were completely, flat wrong about Adam's monarchy give you the least pause about the rest of your theory?

Which is it, did the Indians own the land when we moved in, or not? You cannot say that the land was owned by the Indians and our takeover was unjust for one argument, and then say that conquering is exactly what provides just title for another argument.

My position is that some of the land was truly barren and unclaimed, and when we moved into that there was no injustice to anyone. Other land was rightly held by the Indians, and when we wanted it we had the right and duty to offer them recompense in a proposed sale for their claim. See: Manhattan. In other cases, the land was under an extremely tenuous and ambiguous claim by Indians, and a more substantive claim could be imposed on the situation: when 6 tribes have been fighting over a stretch of land for hunting rights for 2 generations, it is (a) unclear that anyone holds a valid claim of any sort. But also (b) the kind of claim of "hunting rights" is a tenuous kind claim anyway, because hunting does nothing to the land that gives the claimant a real hold on it: unlike the farmer who invests his own energy in the land and changes it to make it produce, (and thus the land becomes constituted as a mixed entity, part natural resource and part farmer's work) the hunter invests nothing in the land. (that's why the Indians could fight between themselves forever over the issue without any hope of just resolution - NONE of them could present a more just claim than any of the others.) In some cases a tenuous kind of claim can be superceded by a claim under a more substantive standard. And in other cases we stole what was rightfully the Indians' property, without hint of justification or excuse.

Anyone who wants to use Christianity and natural law and western civilization's notion of political law, and then call me "Eurocentric," had better be packing heat, because he's asking for it.

Yes, I propose that settlers who change the land have a claim to land of fundamentally different order than Indians who hunt on it. When people hunt on it, the fact that they have done so in the past creates NO SORT of claim on it in the future: any hunter from any surrounding region can claim the same right to hunt with equal validity. Having once hunted on the land doesn't harbor within it any principle by which that activity grants the hunter some specific claim, and so hunting as a claim is infinitely expandable (both in terms of territory desired and in terms of how many people can intend to use it for their activity.) To say that hunting as such creates a valid claim on the land would be tantamount to saying something like "I walked by that tree 12 years ago and picked an apple to eat, so it's produce is mine forever more." There is no valid basis for the claim. No, the sort of claim that we mean by ownership requires something else. And that something else is putting your effort, energy, time, work, labor, thought, and creativity to CHANGING the natural resource at hand. Once you have changed it, it holds something that is inherently yours, and becomes a mixture between natural good and human effort.

So, yes, I am pro-private property based on natural law about what makes natural, untouched things into things ready to immediately satisfy human needs.

Not so. A criminal is an outlaw. He acts outside the state of laws. Functionally, he is as outside the State as a foreign nation at war, esp as in the relation with the victim of the crime.

Then

Plenty of nations have laws providing immunity to Presidents, Prime Ministers and other dignitaries. Such laws may be unwise but they do not cast the notion of state of law into doubt. Entities in the state of nature have no law above them, either they cooperate voluntarily or they make war. The law of Nations, a pre-political argument or a basic level of reasonableness lets them cooperate. This law is along them, as it were and not over them. They are not secured by law but by arms.

So if I get you right, you are saying that a criminal is outside of state of laws because he chooses to ignore the laws of the state, but someone who the state has blessed with legal immunity (that is being untouchable in a court of law) is somehow not outside of the state of law. That is that as long as the state blesses you with the privilege of obeying the law at your discretion (or fancy), you're technically inside the law even though you could theoretically wreck havoc on an unprecedented scale while a criminal who commits a modest misdemeanor without the state's blessing is outside it?..

Mike T,
One thing is a possible defect in the state of law, and that can be politically addressed. You can make arguments to your follow citizens and the objectionable law could be changed.

The outlaw is not amenable to arguments, esp political arguments. He does not respect your person and property. That is, he is deaf to pre-political arguments as well. At best, he could pay heed to an argument that appeals to his selfish interest. But this sort of argument can hardly be called a law.

That's probably the best I can say. I am no admirer of sovereign immunity provisions myself.

Tony,
Thanks for the link provided, I already fully agree with your point about property acquisition via individual labor.

My point is that your picture is incomplete. In particular, you miss the political nature of man and thus do not make necessary distinctions between A Territory and a Property,
And thus you say things like "Indians, Russia and others could (and did) make opposing claims, some of them just. "

Now Maximos correctly wrote
"man, as a social animal, takes his sociality with him wherever he goes, and unless he is a solitary wanderer in a fathomless wilderness, he will be the bearer of some law, positive, customary, or otherwise, implicit in all of his actions,"

But he goes wrong:
"it seems to me that the acquisition of large swathes of North America by means of force and fraud generates some sort of obligation to the descendants of the original inhabitant"

thereby confounding Territory and Property.

My picture is very simple, even childish. Man wanders in a tribe or a nation in modern parlance (that changes nothing, essentially), The Tribes or Nations control Territories by the right of conquest. They lose territory by being conquered in turn.
There is nothing illicit per se on the part of conquerers, It is NOT STEALING.
It was held by force and it was lost by force. As Those that live by the sword shall die by the sword.

The landed property exists within a Tribal or National Territory. It can be initially acquired exactly how you propose. I am nowhere saying that the landed property is created by social grant or recognition.
What I am saying that Property is a Right. A Right is an Argument. Arguments Live in a Space of Arguments that is a State of Law and that is a State.

That is, the concept of a property makes sense only in a state of law, and not in the state of nature. Now individual man is always in a state of law (the political nature of man). It is the Princes or the Tribes or the Nations that are in state of nature.

Property is held through arguments, against those that argue against you.
Against the outlaw, the might of State supports you (Vengeance is mine, you shall not kill).

Territory, tribal or national, are held through main force. There could be arguments but ultimately, as there is no judge, it is might. The territorial arguments are strictly secondary to the National Might. They are war by another means.

The private property rights existing within a particular State are co-extensive with the State. If the State goes, is conquered or suffers subversion or revolution, then the property rights go with it.
The State is the principle of coherence of all the property rights in it. Just as Second Person is the principle of coherence of the physical world.

The misunderstanding is encapsulated in your comment:
"You cannot say that the land was owned by the Indians and our takeover was unjust for one argument, and then say that conquering is exactly what provides just title for another argument. "

1st confusion--The land was not owned by Indians but possessed by the Indian Nation
2nd confusion--Conquering provides just title--just or unjust has nothing to do here.
The Indians possessed their territory by force, as all Nations do, and were deposed by force.

Regarding non-development by hunters. Suppose there has been a hunter polity in a given place for a thousand years. Now a farmer comes along and encloses a plot and farms. Do you think that the farmer had a just claim to that land or the hunter polity?
Pls bear in mind, that the hunters use hunting grounds. They subsist on the land just as the farmer does. They just differ in the form of utilization. By their hunting patterns, they surely modify the land from its uninhabited condition. Why it does not count?

I would regard incomplete a theory of property if it failed to adequately deal with hunters, nomads and like. It is settler-centric if considers only the act of developing a piece of land as necessary and sufficient for property-acquisition. It entirely ignores the justice due to non-settler people.

As for the special nature of the landed property, there are various way I approach it.
Land along with People is the material cause of a City. That makes it different from other property rights.
Also, the pre-political argument that is implicit in the Law of Nations, provides for trade among people from different states. That it, it recognizes chattel property. But the Law of Nations is silent about landed property. Thus, a difference exists between chattel and landed property.

PS I am uncertain why you keep bringing up Adam and monarchy. The current argument is over a Political Theory of Property (esp landed). I would be glad to engage in the other argument but separately.

In other words, a man has an absolute right to the fruit of his labor. But not to the land; you can invoke mixing the labor with land, thereby giving you ownership over the land. It could be true (but not in the absolute sense), but it is not obvious.

For one thing, the land is finite. But the labor and the fruits thereof are not finite. So property in land is a special category.
The Church agrees. The land has been given to Adam and his descendants in common. The ownership in land can be justly adjusted by State, either for some public purposes or for redistribution (not unjust per se).
The property rights in land can also be obliterated by conquest. An American holds his property in America by law against other Americans and by force against non-Americans. This 'by force' is the collective might of the American nature. Being a might, it can justly be opposed by might.

Stealing is a wrong since in a state of law, it is wrong to use force. One must rely on arguments. Conquest is not wrong per se since entities in a state of nature do not use arguments primarily,

My point is that your picture is incomplete. In particular, you miss the political nature of man and thus do not make necessary distinctions between A Territory and a Property,

My picture is very simple, even childish. Man wanders in a tribe or a nation in modern parlance (that changes nothing, essentially), The Tribes or Nations control Territories by the right of conquest. They lose territory by being conquered in turn.
There is nothing illicit per se on the part of conquerers, It is NOT STEALING.
It was held by force and it was lost by force. As Those that live by the sword shall die by the sword.

I have to say, your view of the "state of nature" situation is (a) very Hobbesian, and thus makes me wonder at why you are willing to profess it without some trepidation, and (b) decidedly non-Biblical and non-Christian.

It would be fundamentally impossible for a man, Bill, who has forsaken society and gone off into the wilderness, who comes across another like him, Joe, and say to himself "we are in a state of nature, there is no law between he and I, he has something I can use, I am bigger, I will take it". Or rather, he can do that, but he cannot without a moral aspect to his action, he cannot take this action without forsaking morality. Justice finds a more concrete and determinate expression within the context of the polity and law, but it is not the invention of the law. It is more rooted than that, and it exists even outside of formal polities. A lone Bill can be unjust to a lone Joe, without breaking any human law.

So also, between a wandering tribe of Magyars and a wandering tribe of Lombards. It is certainly the case that while maybe neither one of them may have an airtight, prefect claim to a territory under contention, it is possible for one tribe to have a better claim, in justice, within the greater good of common humanity. Justice exists between humans even when they do not belong to the same polity, and even when there is no higher positive human law that oversees both parties. And even when we don't know exactly where perfect justice sits in some such cases, we are often quite well aware of where grave injustice sits. If the Lombards invite the Magyars to a meal, and then slaughter them where they sit, that's evil and unjust even without a prescribed law. And even though it is done in the name of "conquering" for the sake of territory.

I think your theory of conquering territory is hopelessly amoral (that is to say, it is a presentation without morality in a topic and field that requires morality).

2nd confusion--Conquering provides just title--just or unjust has nothing to do here.
The Indians possessed their territory by force, as all Nations do, and were deposed by force.

Go and read the Popes and the Church on making war between nations for territorial acquisition. They certainly treat the matter as just and unjust having something to do here. Can you find ANY direct support for this incredible theory in the writings of any of the great theologians, Fathers, Doctors, Popes, encyclicals, sermons of the great priests? I cannot think of a single thing that would support it.

If your thesis were right, then there would be nothing to say about a criminal but that he has chosen to be asocial. Given that, war against him is the correct response, and we (as a society, and as individuals acting for society) can kill him and take what was his, as we do in war. But in fact that's not what we think we are supposed to do about criminals. Think about that the next time you find yourself speeding. Since we all break rules here and there, there would be nothing for it but to say that society itself is a sham, a fraud, a pretence. There would be no reason to give it the slightest obedience - except for sheer personal benefit. Which is exactly what Hobbes and (indirectly) Locke end up saying.

For one thing, the land is finite. But the labor and the fruits thereof are not finite. So property in land is a special category.

Every physical good is finite. If I produce a ton of iron from some ore, that's all the iron available from that ore. The iron is mine, and nobody can get more out that ore. They can barter for some of mine, or they can go out and try to find some more ore (but there is no guarantee there is any more to be found).

As I said before: living space can be made out of asteroids, or they can be man-made structures orbiting around Earth. The iron used to make such a satellite would be personal property of someone who dug the ore out of the ground and smelted it, but it becomes the living space of someone else, the "ground" under their feet. So, in a sense, the ground is not quite finite after all. Actually, apartment buildings do much the same thing: they multiply living space without multiplying dirt. Man's co-creativity is not as limited as you think. And land is not as unique as you want to make it out to be.

I would regard incomplete a theory of property if it failed to adequately deal with hunters, nomads and like. It is settler-centric if considers only the act of developing a piece of land as necessary and sufficient for property-acquisition. It entirely ignores the justice due to non-settler people.

I would consider it incomplete also. In one of these threads, I cannot remember where, I made this point more explicit. Custom and continuous practice of a people regarding a piece of land CAN create a claim on it, even if they don't develop it. For example, if a tribe uses a strip of land as a pathway through forest, or as a pass through the mountains for regular movement, to erect an obstacle in the path or pass and charge for passage would be unjust. Also, if a piece of marsh is used as a refuse pile for decades, a person unilaterally starting to develop it and make it a farm (and claiming protection for it so people can no longer dump there) would be treating the rest unjustly. Hence, said I, some lesser kinds of customary usage can ALSO create lesser kinds of just claims - and these sorts are exactly the sorts that cannot be "sorted out" without an authority to decide on behalf of the community, since no private individual has standing to decide for everyone about a custom that everyone participated in and gives everyone a limited kind of claim.

(By the way, that's why ALL of my primary examples were of a lone individual going off into the true wilderness and leaving society behind - then there can be none of this kind of limited claim on the land / property / territory. Cases of a whole tribe moving into a new territory certainly exist, but they cannot be the simple, childish picture compared to a lone man wandering into the frontier.)

Tony,
You are still not making requisite distinctions.
1) Conquest is not illicit PER SE. However, it can be unjustly undertaken as in your slaughter in banquet example.
Dante recounts the story of Roman conquests in Paradiso and never even hints that it could be wrong.
While Theft is wrong PER SE.

I haven't read any Churchly writings and would be obliged if you could correct me where I stray.

2) You confound 'state of nature' with 'state of war'.
State of nature is the rational intercourse of strangers, the libertarian utopia, as it were. Think of a trading post or a banquet given to strange tribe.
State of war is an absence of rational intercourse.
State of law is the rational intercourse of the City.

3) Land is not merely 'living space' and asteroids etc are beside the point. I would elaborate it later.

4) Another example would be a hunting tribe that maintains its hunting grounds by firing them at
appropriate times and places.

Tony,
State of war is descriptive, not prescriptive term. People create or find themselves in the state of war. It does not justify murder. But what is murder?
Murder is an intentional killing of an innocent.
But who is an innocent?
Innocence is a legal as well as a moral category. That is, it has both a political and a pre-political argument behind it.

Now even with a military that is behind an unjust cause, think of Nazi German army, one easily defines murder vs killing. It is murder when a German solider kills an unarmed civilian or a surrendered Russian but it is not a murder when he kills a Russian solider in an action of war.

So even a manifestly 'unjust' invader does not commit murder PER SE. Your tribe has an unjust claim on a territory, you kill all the men the opposite tribe puts up, but there may have been no murder.

We need to reflect more as to why killing in a war is not murder PER SE,

Apparently, you remain unconvinced that a 'right' is an argument and makes sense only in a state of law.

Your position appears that by mixing one's labor with land, one acquires some claim on that land and then one may justly secure that claim either by argument or by brute force.

I argue that if one secures one's land by brute force then one's land is not really a Property but a Territory.

For if one holds land by force, one may be justly ousted by force, irrespective of the labor-mixing one has done on that land. You have not given any reason why mixing a bit of labor should give one a claim over that piece of land for ever and ever.
In fact, you contradict yourself when you first write
"Every physical good is finite."
But then you go
"Man's co-creativity is not as limited as you think"
I find it obvious that land is limited in a way human labor is not.
It is hardly ever that individuals hold territories since man always lives in a state of law.

I maintain that this dual view of Territory and Property makes sense of the actual positions people and States take better than an a view that does not this distinction.
In particular, it shows why people have no abhorrence of conquests per se but glory in them. Not even a successful thief glories in theft.
And why thinking of making reparations to conquered peoples is a modern (progressive) idea, and was never considered in more rational times.
.

Apparently, you remain unconvinced that a 'right' is an argument and makes sense only in a state of law.

I don't think your "state of law" and "state of nature" distinction is valid. That is, I don't think that there really is a "state of nature" condition the way you think of it. I also think that justice exists above and beyond conditions of human positive law, and justice give people and societies just claims even where no law has been written. Conquest of another people's settled, customary territory simply for new territory to hold is a per se evil. That you don't see this makes me doubt whether I can even argue with you.

I find it obvious that land is limited in a way human labor is not.

Right, but so is iron, and wheat. Wheat is finitely renewable: you can grow more, but only with some other resources that are finite. I am not saying land is infinite, I am saying that its finiteness doesn't lead to the intense difference in chattel property and landed property that you think there is.

The German soldier who reasonably thinks his leadership is engaged in a just war is not personally guilty of murder, because his conscience is determined by the perception of it being just war. For the leaders, though, there is no such escape, and they are guilty of all the killings that happen as murder.

Letting aside the question of conquest, I have some comments on the distinction between land and chattels along with Territory and Property.

You have a landed property in America. You also have a notion that Nations have just claims on settled territory. Thus the collectivity of Americans ("All-America") has a claim on your property as well (Claim A) . Now how do you inter-relate these two claims?

All-America has an other (but related) claim on your property: to further common good, the All-America may adjust your landed property (Claim B): this is explicitly allowed for in Catholic teaching, and is also common behavior of all states.

But does All-America has a similar claim on your chattels?. Taxation is similar to claim B but what about claim A?

Now consider all-humanity. By virtue of the Universal Destination of Goods, all-humanity has a claim on your land (Claim C). The CCC 2402 says:
"God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits."

So "earth and its resources" i.e iron, water etc are given over to mankind in common.
Continuing
" However, the earth is divided up among men to assure the security of their lives, endangered by poverty and threatened by violence. "

This dividing up includes both territorial division among nations and property division within nations.

I note that it is only "earth and its resources" that is given to mankind in common. The fruit of labor is not included i.e. chattel property.

Thus property in land and resources therein (such as minerals and water) have a different standing than chattel property.

Tony,
Erasure of the distinction between 'state of law (SL)' and the 'state of nature (SN)' amounts to denial of the political nature of man. As I have argued, SN is libertarian utopia. It does not mean that there are no laws or anything goes. It is a general state of laws but SL is a particular state of laws. Do you think American laws are or should be universal?. Keep in mind the 'law' as used here includes both written laws and unwritten customs.

Politics or the way of a Polis is a particular thing, not common to all mankind. Ultimately it is mystical the way mankind is divided into Nations, but the fact is that man views Law through national lens.

I note that it is only "earth and its resources" that is given to mankind in common. The fruit of labor is not included i.e. chattel property.

Thus property in land and resources therein (such as minerals and water) have a different standing than chattel property.

Gian, you and I are simply talking another language, and you aren't making anything clearer.

In any case, there ISN'T any chattel good that don't fall into the expression "the earth and its resources". Any chattel goods you want to mention are some natural resource that has had human effort applied to it. The nature of chattel just is to be natural resources, modified. The fruit of labor (chattel) is nothing if the labor isn't incorporated into some thing that the labor modifies. If you expend 1000 calories trying to lift a 6-ton boulder, and never move it in any way, you have no "fruit of your labor" that you can walk away with.

Including Spanish conquest of Peru and Mexico?

I have no idea what you think I hold about this, but what I think isn't in the least odd. To the extent that the Spaniards did things like take the incan king hostage and eventually kill him, for gold and to control the land (and its people), that was wrong. To the extent that they brought along missionaries to convert the pagans, that was good. There is no special rule that says you have to conquer a people in order to convert them, as was proven repeatedly in the earlier history of the Church (St. Cyril to the Balkans, St. Olav to the Scandanavians, St. Patrick to the Irish, etc). So the conquering to grab the land that the Incas already had under civilized settlement is basically unjustifiable.

And what I really cannot understand is if you agree with the CCC that there is a universality to mankind's general appropriation of the earth, how can man's universal human nature as a social animal be set aside to justify warfare on a neighbor just to grab his land? It's like schizophrenia or something.

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